


Prison Blues

by Funtimewriter



Category: Adam Levine (Musician), Blake Shelton (Musician), The Voice (US) RPF, The Voice RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Prison, Angst with a Happy Ending, Beating, Gang Violence, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Non-Consensual Blow Jobs, Non-Consensual Bondage, Non-Consensual Kissing, Past Child Abuse, Past Rape/Non-con, Prison Riot, Prison Sex, Public Humiliation, Rape/Non-con Elements, This Is Not Going To Go The Way You Think, Threats of Rape/Non-Con
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-22
Updated: 2018-12-07
Packaged: 2019-08-27 17:20:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 16
Words: 51,257
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16706713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Funtimewriter/pseuds/Funtimewriter
Summary: The middle of a prison riot is the worst possible place to be if you're a guard, especially if you're the warden's son!  But Adam finds an unlikely ally in a scruffy inmate with a bad disposition.  Can the two of them make it through the riot in one piece, or will Adam find himself a pawn to use against his father?





	1. The Riot

**Author's Note:**

  * For [The_Nutcracker](https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Nutcracker/gifts).



> WARNING - READ THE TAGS!! This story takes place in a prison riot, with everything that implies, and is one of my darker fics. I wrote it by request for Nut and posted it on Tumblr, never intending to put it here. But lately I have been getting nagged by a reader who isn't able to access my stories on Tumblr. Nut is being a lazy sod and begged me to post it. So here it is. Enjoy!

            When the alarms sounded, Adam’s heart sank. Prison riots were no joke.  People died, be they guards, inmates, ancillary staff or even visitors.  When things got bad, they got bad quick.  Too many of the inmates had nothing left to lose and everything to gain by fighting. Too many of them were here for a damned good reason.  And now something bad was going down.

            Remembering his training, Adam sprinted for his assigned station.  But he never made it.  Later, when he thought over what had happened, he believed that the inmates were waiting for him.  In the end, they’d caught him completely unprepared.  Adam hadn’t even seen the cracked door of the supply closet, never suspected that the men were hiding inside, watching through the crack as he ran blindly up.  The next thing Adam had known, he was face down on the floor.

            Adam’s training had advised that, in the event of capture, he should cooperate with rioting inmates.  By not resisting, by being compliant, he could show that he was not a threat.  The theory was that this made it less likely he’d be hurt.  But theory went out the window when Adam found himself pressed down against the floor, a knee in his back and hands clutching at his arms, twisting them behind his back.  Fuck cooperation.  Adam yelled, kicked, squirmed and thrashed.  He twisted his arms and managed to get one free long enough to punch someone in the face.  He had no idea how many inmates were on him.  All he knew was that he was being pinned down.  The inmates were trying to get both of his hands tied behind his back. If that happened, he’d have no way to defend himself.  “Get off! Help!”

            “Stop struggling, pretty boy!” a harsh voice warned.

            Yeah, fuck that.

            With a grimace and a grunt of effort, Adam somehow managed to throw the inmate on his back off.  A few kicks and elbows thrown, and suddenly, for one moment, he was free.  Adam scrambled to his hands and knees, tried to charge forward.  But what felt like half a dozen bodies suddenly dove on top of him and he was pinned down once again.  Frantic, Adam struggled, but he could barely move.  Angry, cursing men knelt on or around him, holding him fast to the floor.  “Get off of me!”

            “Not a chance!  Get this bitch tied up!  I can’t believe he’s causing this much trouble.”

            “No, let go of me!  Help!”  Where were the other guards?  What had happened?  Adam couldn’t stop the inmates from twisting his arms painfully back.  Ropes lashed tightly around his wrists.  He continued to fight and struggle and yell, raising his head to look desperately around for any sign of help.  But all he saw were screaming, racing inmates.  It looked like this level of the prison was overrun. And here, he recalled with a sinking heart, was where they housed the worst of the violent sex offenders.  _They called me “pretty boy.”  What are they going to do to me?_

            Adam’s hands had been tightly tied behind his back. He was dragged to his feet and shoved forward.  Adam tried to kick his captors, but that resulted only in his falling heavily to his knees and dragged until he could get his feet under him again.  The second time that happened, Adam unhappily let himself be moved to wherever the inmates were taking him.

            It wasn’t far.  The laundry sorting room was deserted when Adam and his captors came in. Adam was dragged to one of the sorting tables, turned, and pushed back against it until he was forced onto his back, the edge of the table jamming against his buttocks.  And then hands were all over him, unbuttoning his uniform top and pulling up his undershirt, rubbing at his chest and abdomen.  His belt and pants were undone, a hand shoving in to squeeze painfully at his genitals.  Hands tangled in his hair, clutched at his throat to hold him down.

            Adam struggled with all his strength.  “No!  Leave me alone!”

            “Or what, pretty boy?  You gonna tell your daddy the warden on us?”

            “Is that what this is about?” Adam yelled, still trying to kick and squirm free.  “You’re doing this to me because my father’s the warden?”

            “That, and you’re hot.”

            “Damned right he is!  Hottest piece of ass that’s come through here in years!”

            “Hey, check out these tattoos!”

            The hands were still on him, rubbing at his exposed chest and abdomen, squeezing his ass and his crotch.  “Stop it!” Adam roared.  “Take your fucking hands off of me!”

            “Oooo, potty mouth!”

            “I bet we can find a better use for it!”

            A hand tightened in Adam’s hair.  Another clutched at Adam’s chin.  Then a thumb probed at his mouth, slipping past his lips and trying to worm its way past his teeth.  Adam promptly snapped at the thumb, causing the hand to be quickly jerked away.  But then something metal was brought into his line of sight and he stilled.

            “See this, boy?” someone snarled.  “It’s a set of pliers.  Now you’re going to open that pretty little mouth of yours, and you’re not going to bite anything that goes into it.  Because if you do?  Then I take these pliers and I pull out every one of your teeth.  One.  By. One.  That what you want?”

            Adam strained.  “Let me go!  It’s not my fucking fault that my dad’s the warden, and I never wanted to be a guard here! I…”

            The thumb was back in his mouth, this time slipping past his teeth.  Adam eyed the pliers that were still being displayed inches from his face and somehow fought back the instinct to bite.  The thumb moved inside of his mouth, stroking at his tongue while Adam gagged and tried to turn his head away.

            “Pull him up a little.”

            Adam was dragged further back up onto the table until his legs hung off of one end and his head off of the other.  The thumb had been removed from his mouth while they moved him, but now it was back, trying once more to slip between his teeth. Adam clenched his teeth tightly together.  Meanwhile, more hands were pulling at his pants and boxers.  He kicked, trying to squeeze his legs together.  Too many.  They were overpowering him, holding him down, forcing his legs apart. He twisted his wrists in the coarse ropes, straining to free himself.  Hands pulled his pants and boxers down past his knees, forced his legs up. They clutched at his jaw and pressed against his head.  His belt was pulled free and then wrapped around his neck like a noose, choking him, forcing his head back.  His vision started to darken.

            “Open that mouth, bitch!”

            Adam kept his jaw clenched, trying to gasp for air through his teeth.  His head was forced back.  Someone stood too close to his face, and something that wasn’t a thumb was trying to press its way into his mouth now.  He tried to shake his head, tried to turn his face away.  Then a hand slipped between his legs and a finger probed at his opening.  He jumped and tried to kick.

            “Ooo, feisty!”

            “Keep fighting, boy!  I like it when they struggle.”

            Adam fought back a sob, feeling the finger breech him.  Fingers pried at his jaw and he frantically shook his head.

            The belt around his neck tightened.  “If you want to breathe, you better open that mouth!”

            His ears were ringing from the continued pressure on his throat.  His eyes glazed.  The world spun.  His legs were being forced back and up, someone moving into position between them even as his mouth was being pried open.  He was going to be raped, raped by the inmates he’d never wanted to work with and then probably killed.  And for what? To send a message to his father? Would his father even care?  Or would he just blame Adam, chalk up the whole thing to yet another screw-up by his unwanted disappointment of a younger son?

            And then, without a warning, the assault on Adam stopped.

            “What the fuck is going on?!”

            That was a new voice.

            “This isn’t your business.”

            “Looks to me like you assholes are having a little fun with, is that a guard?  You’re raping a guard?  Aw now, ain’t that cute?  Which one is it?”

            “Warden’s kid,” one of Adam’s captors explained. “You want a turn?”

            The newcomer came around.  “Stop fucking choking him, ya damned idiots!”

            “Bitch won’t open his mouth!”

            “So you’re going to strangle him?  Shit, if you want to fuck a dead body, I passed three in the hall!  Have at ‘em. Loosen up that damned belt, he’s turning purple!”

            Suddenly, Adam could breathe again.  He gasped, coughed harshly, and blinked up at the newcomer.  The man towered over the other inmates, a mass of messy hair and bad disposition. He had a long, tangled beard and long curling greasy hair.  Neither appeared to have been washed or combed out for some time.  What looked like a laundry bag bulged suspiciously as it draped over one shoulder.  Bloodshot blue eyes looked Adam over. 

            “Help me,” Adam pleaded without much hope.  “Please!”

            The blue eyes narrowed.  “You had him yet?”

            “We were just about to when you came in.” Uneasy looks were being exchanged among the inmates.  Whoever the new guy was, they seemed to fear him.

            Scruffy Beard nodded.  “Fine.  I’ll buy him.”

            “He ain’t for sale!”

            “Yeah, I’ve been waiting for a piece of this bitch since he started working here!  You can’t…”

            Scruffy Beard moved with surprising speed for a man of his size.  Suddenly, the two inmates who’d objected were on the floor, one retching as he clutched his abdomen, the other cupping his hands over his bleeding nose.  Scruffy straightened and looked the other inmates over. “I’m buying him!  Anyone else want to object?”

            Silence.

            “Good to know.  Don’t worry, I’ll give you a good price for him.”  Scruffy got into his bag and started handing out contents.

            Adam, half dazed, watched as packs of cigarettes, bottles of pills, and what looked like a repurposed soda bottle filled with what was probably bootleg whiskey exchanged hands.  “Now get out,” Scruffy ordered.

            There was a general rush for the door.

            Adam coughed, grimacing, and eyed his new captor. Scruffy put the laundry bag, now considerably less full, aside and reached for him.

            “Stop!” Adam yelled.  “Don’t hurt me.  Eventually this prison will be retaken, and when that happens, whatever you do to me now is going to come back to haunt you!  Just let me go and leave me alone!”

            “Shut up,” Scruffy ordered.  His voice was low and gentle even as his big hands jerked Adam down, set him on his feet, turned him around, and then forced him, face-down, back down onto the table again. 

            Adam immediately started to struggle, but stopped with a gasp when the belt around his neck suddenly grew snug.  “Stop, please!  Don’t hurt me!”

            “Settle down!”  A hand pushed Adam down flat on the table.  Then Scruffy leaned down, crowding Adam, pressing against him to whisper in his ear.  “Am I choking you?”

            Adam blinked.  “Not really?  Please don’t!”

            “Calm down, I ain’t gonna hurt ya,” Scruffy assured. “Now, those assholes are going to be watching, so we gotta make this look, and sound, good.  Got it?”

            “Huh?”  Adam strained to free his hands.  “What do you mean?  What are you going to do to me?”

            “Fuck you, or at least that’s what it’s gonna look like.  Unfortunately, there’s not much of a way around this part.  Sorry, kid.”

            Adam yelped as Scruffy grabbed a fistful of his hair, raised his head, and then pressed his mouth against Adam’s.  Adam yelled, the sound muffled by Scruffy’s mouth, and tried to pull away.  He yelled again when Scruffy’s mouth moved, the big inmate licking at his throat and then fastening hard against the skin on his neck.  “Stop!  Get off of me!  You sick son of a bitch, I’ll fucking kill you!”

            “That’s it,” Scruffy encouraged softly.  “Sorry about the hickey.  But keep it up, kid.  You really gotta sell this now.”

            Adam still had no idea what was going on.  But now the hand in his hair let go.  Scruffy wrapped his hand in the belt around Adam’s neck, pulling it tight enough to be snug without choking Adam.  Then the hand pressed between Adam’s shoulder blades, once more holding him down against the table.  Now he couldn’t move off of the table.  Adam yelled and fought, feeling the larger man push down his prison-issue pants and move into position behind him.  The second big hand clutched at his hip.  Adam tried to kick, but Scruffy was between his legs, pressed up against his ass. Adam panicked and struggled wildly. “No!  _No!_   Please, I’m begging you!  Don’t hurt me!  Please don’t do this!”

            “Atta boy!” Scruffy praised, speaking in a low voice that wouldn’t carry outside of the room.  “Now remember, this hurts like hell.”

            _“No!”_  Adam shrieked and thrashed. Behind him, the big man began to thrust energetically against him.  But Adam quickly realized two things.  One, Scruffy was soft.  There was no trace of arousal.  And secondly, nothing was actually happening.  Scruffy was pantomiming raping Adam, without committing the actual act.

            Adam finally got with the program.

            “No!” he screamed, continuing to struggle. “Take it out of me!  Please, you’re hurting me!  Stop, please!”

            “Scream all you want, bitch!” Scruffy yelled.  “I own your ass now, and I’m getting everything I paid for!”

            Adam kept up the act, the whole time wondering what, exactly, had just happened?  That he’d just been rescued from gang rape, there was no doubt.  But who was this man, and why was he helping him?


	2. Bad Situation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Big Country tries to convince Adam it's in his best interest to cooperate. Adam has other ideas.

            Adam wished Scruffy would untie him.  After the “rape,” Adam had mistakenly thought he’d be freed.  But instead, Scruffy had simply gotten them both dressed and then gone marching off, leading Adam by the belt around his neck like a dog.  It was mortifying.  The inmates all looked at the mark Scruffy had left on his neck, saw the way his clothing was torn, and thought they knew exactly what Adam’s captor had done to him. This further humiliation had them all in stitches.  Mocking laughter, catcalls, and lewd comments followed the corrections officer as he walked, head down and face flaming, at the end of his makeshift leash.

            At least he’d learned his rescuer’s nickname – Big Country.  Over and over, Adam heard that called out as the inmates cheered Scruffy on.  Well, it made sense.  The man was certainly huge, at least six foot five and solidly built. And his accent was pure southern sticks.

            Finally, they’d arrived at their destination. Scruffy had appropriated a linen closet. When he’d taken Adam inside and closed the door, Adam had again anticipated being untied.  He’d breathed a sigh of relief when Scruffy had immediately gone to work on the ropes that held his wrists.  But to his dismay, Scruffy untied him only long enough to pull Adam’s hands in front of him and rope them securely to one of the heavy metal supports on the shelf.  “Hey, come on!” Adam protested.  “Why are you tying me back up?”

            “This door doesn’t lock, not since I kicked it open,” Scruffy explained quietly.  “You’re my bitch right now, kid.  No one is going to believe you’d just stay quietly with me with what they think I just did to you.  Especially not after the fuss you made when they grabbed you!  Hell, I found you because I heard you screaming from clear back here!”  He shook his head.  “All I wanted was to nap in peace, but the way you were hollering, I had to go and see what the hell was going on!”

            “They attacked me!” Adam protested.  “They were going to rape me!  I’m so sorry if my screams upset you!”  Grateful as he was for Scruffy’s assistance, Adam couldn’t help but feel pissed off.  Why the hell wouldn’t he scream?  Anyone would scream!

            “I ain’t faulting you for screaming, moron!” Scruffy grumbled.  “I’m saying that, all things considered?  Keeping you tied up is the only way I’d be able to keep you.  So, you’re staying tied up!”

            “Aw, come on!”  He tugged on the ropes.  “At least loosen them!”

            “No.”

            “This is bullshit!  You could at least take my belt off of my neck?”

            “Oh yeah, good point.”  Scruffy got up, came over, and took the belt.  But instead of pulling it off over his head as Adam expected, he cinched it up tighter around Adam’s neck.  While Adam could do nothing more than blink in surprise, Scruffy tied the end of it to the shelf behind Adam.  Now Adam found himself secured between two shelves, his hands tied to one and the belt tied to another.  He could barely move.

            Adam sputtered.  “Seriously?!”

            “Yup.  Now you’re definitely not going anywhere, and you can’t work at the knots with your teeth because you can’t reach,” Scruffy announced.  He sounded very pleased with himself, his thick southern accent coming out as a satisfied drawl.  “Got you good!”

            “Oh, come on!”  Adam ground his teeth.  “Alright, fine, you got me good.  Now what are you going to do with me?”

            Scruffy made a face.  “As little as I can possibly get away with.  I couldn’t stand by and let you get gang raped, kid, especially not after you begged me for help.  But you’re still a guard, I’m an inmate, and we’re in the middle of a riot. I’ll protect you as much as I can, but I’m still going to have to do you a certain amount of abuse.”

            “Slap me around, you mean?” Adam asked bitterly.

            “At the very least, yes.  In fact?”

            Adam supposed he should have seen the blow coming. But it wouldn’t have done much to keep it from rattling his head.  And the one that immediately followed it was no better.  “Oh, you motherfucker!” he yelled.  “I’ll fucking kill you, you son of a bitch!”

            “Shut up!” Scruffy yelled back.  Then he lowered his voice.  “You ok?”

            Adam shook his head, trying to clear the ringing in his ears.  “No, asshole!” he hissed.  “Holy shit, you hit hard!  Could you maybe try not to give me a concussion?!”

            Scruffy reached for Adam’s face again and he cringed back involuntarily.  But the big hand that took his chin was surprisingly gentle.  Scruffy tilted Adam’s face, frowning at the marks that were no doubt already forming.  “Yeah, that’s already swelling.  You’re gonna bruise for sure.”

            “Thanks,” Adam spat bitterly.  “So glad to hear that you’ve managed to mark me up even more! God knows I wouldn’t want you to have to hit me again!”

            Scruffy let go of his face.  “I can’t be gentle here, kid.  I’ll try not to let it get worse than that, but you’re going to be expected to show up with bruises.  Possibly more.”

            Adam eyed him.  “More?  What’s that mean?”

            “Depends on what happens, and how long this shit goes on out there.  We’ll work it out as we go, but this isn’t going to be a good time for you, kid.  I’m going to have to hurt you, and the longer this goes on, the worse it’s gonna get.  Sorry.”

            “Yeah.”  Adam tugged unhappily at his wrists.  “I still say you don’t have to tie me up like this.  I can barely move!  Why couldn’t you could just make it look like you tied me up?  You don’t have to actually do it, and especially not like this!”

            “Yes, I do have to actually do it.”

            “Why?”

            “Because I don’t trust ya,” the inmate informed him. “Especially not now, after I just flat-out told you I was going to hurt you!  The simple fact you want loose tells me that you’re thinking about making a run for it.”

            “So fucking what?!” Adam challenged. “Wouldn’t you?”

            “Damned straight!  But here’s the thing.  I don’t think you have any idea of just what is going on outside there.  I’ve kept you in here away from it, but you’re new here. You don’t know the politics among the inmates here, kid, the power plays, the various factions facing off against each other as we speak.  It is World War Three out in those halls.  People are already dead, and a hell of a lot more are gonna die before it’s all over.  And the COs, the medical staff, and any visitors caught inside when the shit hit the fan are all out there right now, right in the middle of it!  You think you got the worst of what those fuckers can do to someone?  Not even close!  It’s bad, and it’s going to get one hell of a lot worse before it gets better.”

            Adam licked his lips.  “I know they probably would have done worse than just rape me if you hadn’t stepped in.  I was about to lose consciousness before you made them stop choking me.”

            Scruffy sighed.  “Listen.  You seem like a smart kid.  I hope eventually you figure out that staying with me and doing things my way is the only chance you’ve got at getting out of this with your life, and your ass, intact. So, the two of us are going to have to come to a few mutually beneficial agreements.”

            Adam stiffened and took a deep breath. “Alright.  I’m listening.”

            “But first, I’m taking a nap.”

            Adam stared.  “You serious?”

            “Serious as a heart attack!  That jackass I had for a cellmate snores loud enough to rattle the walls.  I haven’t had a decent night’s sleep in weeks!  All I want is just an hour or so of decent sleep.  It’s all I wanted when this shit started.  I had to put it off to save your skinny tattooed ass.  Now I’m getting it.  So good night!”  Scruffy pulled down a bunch of linens and formed a soft nest out of them.  Then the older man climbed in, shifting things around until he got comfortable.  He sighed in relaxation and closed his eyes.

            Adam groaned and tugged on the ropes.  “You’re seriously going to just leave me tied up like this while you get your beauty sleep?”

            “Sounds like a good idea to me!”

            “It’s a stupid idea!”

            “And I suppose you got a better one?”

            “You could just let me go?” Adam offered. “Help me get out of here, and I’ll mention it!  I’ll even bring it up at your next parole hearing.  I’ll tell everyone how you saved me.  You’ll be a hero!”

            “No thanks,” came the sleepy reply.  “I don’t look good in tights and a cape anyway.”

            Adam jerked hard on the ropes now, frustrated. “Come on!  Dammit, Big Country, just let me go!”

            Scruffy opened one blue eye.  “Kid, if you don’t be quiet, I’ma take a washcloth and one of these pillow cases and gag ya!  Now shut up and let me sleep.”

            Well, that was certainly a conversation killer. Adam leaned against the shelf, lost in his misery while Scruffy soon started snoring.  He wished he could nap, too.  But while he could lean on the shelf, the edge of it dug into his side. His face ached where he’d been struck. His hands quickly grew numb.  The belt rubbed annoyingly at his neck every time he moved.  The cold, hard cement floor did nothing to ease his discomfort.  Adam couldn’t remember a time he was ever so uncomfortable in his life.

            Then, because apparently Adam was born to be fate’s bitch, he realized he needed to pee.

            Chagrined, he eyed Scruffy.  Nope.  Nuh uh. He did not want to know what Scruffy’s plan was to address this situation.  And what happened if this riot continued, if the inmates controlled the prison all day, through the night, or even for a few days? Eventually he’d have to take a shit. He’d quickly grown used to the sight of men on the toilet, doing their business with no privacy whatsoever. That was one of the prices inmates paid for being locked up for their crimes.  But now Adam would have to pay that price as well.  His cheeks flamed.

            Finally, he couldn’t stand it anymore.  He twisted his head, working to get his chin under the belt, and finally succeeded in getting it up into his mouth.  Getting a grip on the belt between his teeth, he jerked at the tied end.  It took eight hard jerks before the knot came undone.  Now his jaw ached, but at least he was loose.

            Now he could reach the knots on his wrists with his teeth.  It took a frustratingly long time.  Gradually, the knots loosened.  Finally, he was able to pull his hands free.

            The pins and needles feeling as blood returned to his hands was distinctly unpleasant.  Adam grimaced, clenching and unclenching his hands, wiggling his fingers to get the blood flowing.  He grimaced again as he unfolded his legs, wincing as a joint popped and got to his feet. He was only twenty-five, and already he was creaking like an old man.  It did not bode well for later in his life.  But right now, Adam didn’t care.  He had his chance.

            Adam quickly put his belt back on his pants. He would have preferred to throw the damned thing out the window, but his pants had taken a beating today.  Now the waistband was stretched and the button was broken.  He’d end up losing his pants without it.  Fine. Belt in place, he moved to the door, cracked it open, and peeked out.  He could still hear the sounds of yelling down the halls.  For now, though, it seemed some distance away.  No one was visible in the hall.  Good.  Time to get the hell out of there.

            After he took a piss.

            The closest toilet was back in the employee locker room, down the noisy hall.  No thanks. His eyes fell on a water fountain. Gross, but at this point it was better than the alternative.  It hadn’t worked in years anyway and already smelled of urine.  Adam emptied his bladder.  Sweet relief.  Alright. Now for an exit strategy.

            His prison-issued uniform made him feel conspicuous as he jogged down the hall.  Anyone who caught a glimpse of him would know immediately that he was a CO, and the name tag reading LEVINE on his shirt also linked him to the warden.  Not good.  Adam quickly stripped out of his uniform top and tossed it aside.  Now he was in his white undershirt.  It would still be obvious he was a guard, but at least now he might stand a chance that anyone who ran into him wouldn’t realize his connection to the warden.  Best he could do.

            He took a moment to get his bearings.  He was on the east side of the prison, not far from the laundry room.  Good place to start.  The prison served multiple nearby hospitals and care facilities with laundry services. The laundry room had a hallway that had access to a dock where the laundry trucks came and went.  The halls would be locked, of course, and Adam no longer had his keys.  Still, the fact that his keys had been taken meant the inmates would be able to unlock that gate and try to escape.  It was worth a try.  The alternative would be running to the north side to try the locker rooms for COs and the door he and his coworkers came through every day.  But Adam could hear a lot of unpleasant noises coming from that direction.  He had no desire to investigate it further.  Alright.  Laundry room it was.

            Adam carefully peeked into the laundry room. Empty.  More importantly, he could see the folding table where he’d been nearly gang raped.  His keys were lying there, completely undisturbed.  What were the chances?  Adam breathed a sigh of relief and went in.  He moved to the table and picked up his keys.  Quickly selecting the right one, he headed for the access gate for the loading dock and freedom.

            “What the hell?  What do we have here?”

            Adam whirled, facing the two inmates who were getting to their feet.  They’d been sitting behind one of the laundry carts.  Judging by the smell of smoke that lingered in the room and their glazed eyes, they’d been smoking some drug.  Adam’s heart sank as he backed up.  “I don’t want any trouble,” he called, raising his hands.  “I just want to unlock this gate, and we can all get out of here.”

            The inmates looked at him, looked at each other, and began to laugh.  “Whatever you’ve been smoking must be way stronger than what we just did!” the skinhead on the right laughed.

            “You know it!”  The inmate on the left had long, greasy-looking dreadlocks.  They bobbed as he nodded and pointed towards the gate.  “You know what’s outside that gate?  SWAT! They got this place sealed up tight! Why the hell do you think the gate’s locked?  We barricaded the shutter at the end of the loading dock, filled up the hall with shit, and locked the door to keep them from coming in!  And you want to go out?”

            “Of course he does,” Skinhead noted, his glazed eyes flicking over Adam.  “He’s a fucking guard!”

            “Well, ain’t that something?”

            The two were coming towards Adam now.  He backed up, glancing down the hall.  It was true.  Overturned folding tables and carts of laundry littered the hall, more items were pressed against the shutter at the end.  In his haste to escape, Adam hadn’t even realized that the laundry room had been all but emptied.  “Wait!” he called, thinking fast.  “If I go out there first, they’ll see I’m a guard.  They won’t shoot me, and I can get safe passage for you!”

            “Nah, I think we’ll just stay here.  C’mere.”

            Nope, not going to happen.  Adam bolted, running around the two men.  He shoved the folding table in their way to slow them down and raced out the door.  There was a startled shout, and Adam looked to see a group of four more inmates coming up the hall from the south side.  Shit.  No choice now.  He had to take his chances with the north side.

            Adam raced up the hall, hearing more yells as the inmates behind him gave chase.  The long hallway seemed endless as Adam ran, his heart pounding and his lungs dragging in air.  He was in good shape, thin, but athletic.  In contrast, the inmates chasing him looked strong, but not exactly in marathon condition. Adam was sure he could outrun them. The question was where he could go? If he could get to the employee locker room he could lock the door, get out the employee entrance, and find safety with the SWAT team outside.  Now he regretted throwing his uniform top aside.  If he’d still been wearing it, it would have greatly decreased his odds of being shot by SWAT.  Oh well. Nothing for it now.  He focused on running, getting down the hall as quickly as he possibly could.  The faster he got to the employee locker room, the faster he could get out of this hell.

            Then another group of inmates rounded the corner in front of him, and Adam’s hopes vanished.

            He wasn’t going down without a fight.  He kept running, lowering his head to charge into the inmate at the edge of the group.  If he could plow his way through, he still had a chance.  The inmate grunted and fell back, and Adam stumbled over him, tried to twist around and keep running.  But a hand seized his arm, jerked him back.  He tripped, stumbled, fell onto his back.  Seeing an inmate coming at him, Adam kicked hard with both feet, knocking the man back.  Then he rolled and quickly got to his feet, panting.  He put his back to the wall.  Inmates running up from his left.  The new group approaching from his right.  Nowhere to run.  Shit.


	3. Property of Big Country

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Adam gets a brutal lesson in prison politics

            Knowing you were caught and actually accepting it were two very different things.  Adam was ready for a fight.  He got his back to the wall and raised his fists.  “Stay the hell away from me!” he warned.  “Don’t you fucking touch me!”

            Inmates generally did not get to become inmates by being good at obeying orders.  Two of them charged Adam at once.  Adam ducked away from the first and swung hard at the second.  His fist connected with the man’s jaw with a satisfying crack. Adam ducked as the first came back at him again and drove a fist up and into the inmate’s diaphragm.  The air went out of the man with a woosh and Adam danced aside.

            The other inmates apparently thought this was the highest form of entertainment.  They cheered and clapped even as another inmate came forward, fists raised.  Adam jabbed, ducked a counter and landed a hard roundhouse.  But he’d moved away from the wall and suddenly another inmate was behind him. The inmate’s arms wrapped around Adam, pinning his arms to his sides.  Then stars exploded in his vision as a blow landed on the side of Adam’s temple.

            More blows landed, hit after hit, battering Adam’s face and body.  He stomped down hard, managed to hit the foot of the man holding him, and for a moment, he was free.  He got in a couple more hits before his arms were caught and pulled out to his sides. Now they were all around him, battering at his body.  A hard hit to the kidney made him writhe, a kick to his knee made him stumble.  And then he was being dragged by his arms along the floor, pulled backwards down the hall towards the sound of the large group.

            Adam was dragged into the cafeteria among cheers and jeers.  Inmates crowded the room, standing on benches and tables.  The center of attention was two guards who were being forced to fight each other.  Adam glanced around, noting in horror the other guards, the physician’s assistant, and one woman in the room.  Adam recognized her as one of the parole officers, May Abrams.  She’d apparently been visiting the prison at the worst possible time.  Her torn clothing, battered appearance, and blank expression made Adam feel sick. Near her was the male physician’s assistant from the infirmary, Diego Ortiz.  He was young, around Adam’s age, and good-looking.  His physical condition, and his expression, were identical to the woman’s.  The two guards fighting had both been on report more than once for use of excessive force.  It was one of the long list of reasons Adam had fought and argued against taking a position here, the wide-spread abuse and corruption present in his father’s prison. Now that the inmates were in charge, all of that was coming back to haunt them.  All of their hostages, from the guards to the physician’s assistant who sold heroin in the prison, to the PO who’d extorted numerous ex-cons in return for not revoking their paroles, were now facing a brutal form of justice. Adam shuddered.  The punishments in no way fit the crimes, but the inmates were in no mood to hear this.

            Now they had Adam, as well.

            “Warden’s kid!”  The cry went up from multiple throats as Adam was thrown down on the floor in the middle of the cafeteria.

            Adam looked up.  He was surrounded by cheering, leering faces and wolf-like grins. He painfully got to his feet, wincing as he put weight on his injured knee.

            “What do we do with this bitch?”

            “I say we start carving pieces out of him to send to his daddy!”

            Cheers of approval.

            “I say he joins Abrams and Ortiz!”

            Adam swallowed hard as more cheers rang out.

            “I say we figure it out later.”  This was an overweight man with a mohawk.  He’d gotten to his feet and was strolling towards Adam.  “ _After_ we show him just what we think of his daddy!”

            Adam saw the blow coming, but couldn’t duck or block in time.  The heavy fist knocked him sprawling to the ground, split his lip, and filled his mouth with blood.  He spit it out, climbing warily back to his feet.  Everyone was watching now.  Even the two guards who had been forced to fight each other had stopped and were staring at him, as well as Abrams and Ortiz.  None of them had any sympathy in their eyes as they looked at Adam.  Why would they?  They’d resented his being there from the start, and had been through hell while they had no idea where Adam had been.  They might even think Adam deserved what was coming.

            Mohawk was coming at Adam again, gesturing with his fists for Adam to get ready to fight.  Adam brought up his fists and waited.  There was no way he could win this.  At least, maybe, he might get in a few good shots before he was beaten completely down.  He didn’t want to think about what would happen to him after that.

            _“What the everloving fuck do y’all think yer doing?!”_

            The roar got everyone’s attention.  There was Big Country, storming through the door, red-faced and furious.  He pointed at Adam.  “That little bastard is mine!  I paid for him!  Son of a bitch belongs to me!”

            “Then what the hell was he doing trying to get out of the laundry loading deck, Shelton?”  It was one of the men from the laundry room.

            Shelton was apparently Big Country/Scruffy’s actual name.  His blue eyes narrowed, his face flushed as he stared at Adam.  “That true?  Bad enough you got yerself untied and ran, but were you trying to get out, too?!”

            “Of course I was trying to get out!” Adam yelled. He’d reached his limit now, fear and anxiety and pain making him reckless.  “After what happened to me, what you did to me, why the fuck wouldn’t I try to get out?!”

            “Beat the shit out of this bitch, Shelton!” Mohawk yelled.

            Roars of approval.  Adam looked around in alarm, seeing Mohawk step back, seeing the crowd part to let Shelton through.  Shelton loomed over Adam.  He’d forgotten how big the inmate was.  Then suddenly, Shelton looked a lot bigger.  Adam was on the floor, his ears ringing and the world spinning.

            “Get up, Levine.”

            “No.  You’ll just hit me again.  I think I’ll just...  Ow, fuck!”

            Shelton had Adam by the hair and was dragging him to his feet.  The big man balled up his other fist and slammed it into Adam’s stomach.  He hit Adam again, and again.  Then he dragged Adam’s face down as he brought up his knee, smashing Adam’s face into it.

            Adam narrowly avoided a broken nose by virtue of managing to turn his head a fraction of an inch away from Shelton’s kneecap, but it still hurt like hell.  Shelton let go of his hair and he fell to the floor.  His stomach heaved and he gagged, arms wrapped over his abdomen. Then Shelton was there again, driving his foot into Adam’s side.  Adam screamed in pain and fell sideways.  Once again, Shelton’s foot drove forward, this time into Adam’s stomach.  Adam gagged again and curled up into a ball. The noise was deafening, the cheers and screams of the inmates echoing off the brick walls.  “Little bastard!” Shelton was yelling.  “I told you to stay put!  What the hell were you thinking?!”

            “Keep it up, Shelton!  We’re making a little video to send to the fucking warden.  Let him watch his precious princess here get beat to a pulp.”

            Adam squeezed his eyes shut, bracing for more punishment.

            “I got a better idea.  Fuck this bitch, Shelton!  Let his daddy watch you pound his ass!”

            Roars of approval.  Adam’s eyes flew open, met Shelton’s.  He shook his head, silently begging Shelton with his eyes not to do this, not to violate him in front of these men.

            Shelton’s eyes were cold as ice.  He gestured.  “Get up on your fucking knees, Levine!”

            No.  Adam shook his head.  But Shelton pointed at the floor in front of him.  Adam shuddered.  He managed to struggle up to his knees and swayed.  The world spun and he closed his eyes, lowering his head.  “Please don’t do this!”

            A hand in his hair, dragging his head forward. “Open your mouth!”

            Adam did.

            It was worse, much worse, than when Shelton had pantomimed raping him.  This time, he had to shove Adam’s face against his crotch.  Adam struggled a bit as an excuse to bring up his hands, helping shield them.  It wasn’t what it looked like to the excited inmates, but Adam’s face was still shoved into the man’s crotch, pulled back, and shoved forward again and again in a sick pantomime of oral sex.  And worse, this time, Shelton was partially hard.  There was no way to not get him in his mouth.  It was almost as bad as the real thing, and something in Adam broke a little as Shelton pantomimed finishing in Adam’s mouth and cheers rang out.

            Shelton threw him to the floor.  “Who owns you, bitch?!”

            Sudden silence as the inmates waited for an answer. Adam lay where he was thrown, head down. “You,” he whispered.

            “I what?  Say it!”

            Adam shuddered.  “You own me.”

            “Don’t ever forget it again!”  More cheers as Shelton grabbed his arm, dragged him out.

            Once they were down the hall, Shelton quickly pulled Adam up.  When Adam’s knees buckled, he scooped up Adam and quickly carried him back to the closet. “Shit, shit shit!  I’m sorry, kid!  Dammit, I’m so fucking sorry, hold on, I’ll get you some ice packs, some bandages...”

            Adam didn’t move.  He simply lay as he was, sprawled on the floor like a broken doll. Shelton returned, cleaned and bandaged his cuts, pressed ice packs to his bruises.  “I know this has got to be the stupidest fucking question I could possibly ask you,” Shelton said quietly.  “But is there anything, I mean, can I do something for you?”

            Adam looked at him.  “What’s your name?”

            “Huh, kid?”

            “Your name.  Mine’s Adam Levine.”

            The blue eyes blinked.  “I’m Blake Shelton.”

            “Thanks, Blake.”

            Blake looked at him.  “Thanks?  Kid, you look like I, well, beat the shit out of you and then sexually assaulted you!”

            “I’m alive,” Adam told him.  “And it would have been so much worse if you hadn’t come when you did.  Thank you.”

            A ghost of a smile traced Blake’s lips. “You’re welcome.”

            And then suddenly those lips were pressed against Adam’s.

            Adam thrashed, shoved at Blake.  “Get off me!  What the hell are you doing?!”

            Blake pulled back immediately, his cheeks flushed. Adam stared.  “Holy shit, is that why you were half hard when you did that to me?”

            “I was half-hard because the body does what the body does!  I didn’t want to hurt you and I sure as hell didn’t enjoy anything I had to do to you, Adam! But...”

            “But what?”

            “But you were so damned beautiful, standing there, knowing you were beat and yet still ready to fight for your life!  I knew you were beautiful before, but right then, I mean...”  He shook his head.  “Adam, you took my breath away!”

            “So you fucked my mouth.”

            That brought back the violent inmate Adam had come to know.  “Kid, if I wanted to fuck your mouth, you’d have come down your throat right about now!” He sighed, and his shoulders slumped. “I’m sorry, Adam.  What I had to do to you makes me sick, and seeing you now, what I did to you, how I hurt you?  You got every right to be pissed at me.”  He reached for Adam.  “If there’s...”

            Adam shoved at him.  “Get the fuck away from me!  Keep your sick hands off of me!”

            Adam saw the light go out of Blake’s eyes. The inmate straightened and nodded, his greasy hair falling in his face.  “Fine.  If that’s how you want it, then that’s how we’ll play it.”  He picked up the rope.

            “No fucking way!  Get away from me!  You’re not... Oof!”

            Blake had grabbed his arm, roughly flipped him onto his stomach, and then dropped on top of him with a knee in his back.  He started wrapping the rope around Adam’s wrist. Adam immediately started fighting, and a heavy hand came down hard, shoving Adam’s battered face down on the floor. “Stop!  Struggling!”

            Adam grew still.  He closed his eyes as Blake tied his hands once more behind his back. Finished, the big inmate moved away, got into his pillowcase sack, and produced a tin of meat.  He opened it and began to eat it with his fingers.  He didn’t offer any to Adam.  He didn’t even glance in his direction.

            Adam shifted, sitting up so he could lean into the corner of the closet.  His body ached and throbbed.  He warily watched Blake, wondering if maybe alienating his only potential source of help in this hell was maybe a bad idea?


	4. Sleeping Arrangements

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After a rough day, Adam desperately needs some rest. But he doesn't care for what Blake has in mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Artwork by Nutcracker!

            Adam had no idea what time it was, but he was exhausted.  Over and over again, his eyes slipped closed and his head dropped to his chin.  Blake was sitting on his makeshift bed, reading and ignoring Adam.  Adam’s hands had long ago gone numb.  He nodded off again, slumped against the shelf, and it slid, making a loud screeching sound that made them both jump.

            Blake narrowed his eyes in irritation at him. “What’s wrong with you?”

            What’s wrong?  His body ached.  Everything hurt.  His hands were numb and his shoulders were sore from having his hands tied behind him for hours.  He’d been given nothing to eat.  He was battered, bruised and exhausted, physically, mentally, and emotionally drained, and being held captive by a violent convict from the sex offenders ward who’d already kissed him and admitted to being attracted to him. “Nothing, Blake.  Nothing at all.  Why do you ask?”

            Blake sighed.  “You hungry, kid?”

            “I’m fine.”

            Adam’s stomach denied this with a loud gurgle. Blake sighed again, put his book aside, and got up.

            Adam cringed away when Blake leaned over him. But Blake just untied his hands. He took one of Adam’s hands in his own and rubbed it.  Adam cursed loudly at the pins and needles and pulled his hand away.

            Blake frowned.  “I’m just trying to help.”

            “I think I’ve had just about enough of your help today, Blake.”

            Once again, Blake’s eyes went cold.  He seized Adam’s arm and dragged him across the floor to the other side of the closet.  Then he let go of Adam, dug in his sack, and produced a protein bar. “Here.  Eat this.”

            Adam got his hands working enough to take the offering.  But he couldn’t get it unwrapped.  Blake grabbed it, opened it, and held it towards Adam’s mouth.  “Here.”

            “Thanks.”  Adam quickly pulled the bar out of Blake’s hand and took a big bite.

            Blake rolled his eyes.  “You gonna spend the rest of however long this takes resenting me?”

            “The thought did cross my mind, yes.”

            “Adam, you’re a beautiful man.  Seeing you standing there the way you were turned me on. But if I hadn’t had to shove your face into my crotch, you never would have known.”

            “But you did shove my face into your crotch, Blake!” Adam snapped.  “You did, and then you were in my mouth and everyone was watching and it was awful and it’s not something I can just forgive!”

            “Damnation, Adam, I did not want to do that to you!” Blake hissed.  “I knew I wouldn’t get away with what I did last time, but I also knew I had to give them something!”

            “You didn’t give them anything, Blake.  You gave me something, something I never asked for!”

            “I didn’t ask for it either!”

            “Then throw me right back into that fucking cafeteria!”

            “Maybe I should?”

            “Fine!”

            “Fine!”

            Adam braced, expecting Blake to grab him and drag him out.  His heart was pounding, and he was shaking in fear at the thought of what would happen to him then.  But Blake didn’t move.  “You get that out of your system now, kid?” he asked instead.

            Adam looked down, miserable.  He nodded.

            “Good.  I didn’t want to do that to you, Adam.  I didn’t want to hurt you at all.  But if I hadn’t, then they would have hurt you one hell of a lot worse.  And none of that would have happened if you’d just listened to me and stayed put!”

            “I had to take a piss!”

            “Out the loading dock of the laundry?”

            “No,” Adam confessed.  “I went to the laundry because I was trying to get away.  And I knew the building was probably surrounded, and should have known that they’d barricade the exits.  But I wanted to get out.  I needed to get out!  After what they tried to do to me, what you did to me?”

            “Saved your life?”

            “Humiliated me!  Blake, you led me through the halls by my belt like a dog on a leash!”

            “Which made all those assholes out there aware that I’d claimed you!”

            “Then you tied me up so I couldn’t move and you went to sleep!”

            “I was tired!  If you had to take a piss, why didn’t you just wake me up?  I would have helped you with that, but you didn’t trust me!”

            “You left me tied up like an animal!  Would _you_ trust you?”

            “You’re a guard, you dumb son of a bitch!  You leave us caged up like animals every day!”

            “You’re convicts!”

            “You’re corrupt!  All the COs in this hellhole are corrupt!”

            “Which is why I didn’t want to work here!”

            “So why the hell do you?”

            “Because my dad threatened to throw me out and cut me off if I didn’t!”

            “Hooo, now we’re getting somewhere!”

            Adam rapidly shoved the rest of the protein bar into his mouth.

            Blake watched him.  He waited until Adam had finished eating and was staring sullenly back at him.  Then he got up and picked up the rope.

            “Don’t!”  Adam scooted back into the corner.

            “Come here.”

            “Fuck you!”

            “Adam, if I have to come over there and get you I’m going to hogtie you!  If you just hold still and let me tie you, I’ll tie your hands in front and make sure your circulation’s good.  That’s the best I can do for you.  Now come here!”

            Adam clenched his fists.  Now he had the circulation back, he very much wanted to keep it.  If he continued to piss off Blake, that was going to change.  But what choice did he have?  One way or another, Blake was going to tie him up.  Fine.  Adam got up, reluctantly came closer, and stood in front of Blake, angrily challenging Blake with his eyes.

            Blake didn’t say a word.  He tied Adam’s hands in front of him, this time being careful not to make the ropes too tight.  Adam still wouldn’t be able to get loose, but at least now he wouldn’t lose circulation. It was an improvement.

            “Night, Adam.”

            “Good night, Blake.”

            Blake reached up, pulled the string of the light. Well, that was annoying.  Now Adam would have to feel around to find a place to sleep.  He was turning to do that when he felt Blake’s arm circle his waist, pulling him off-balance.  He yelped and stumbled, Blake still pulling on him until he was lying on one hip and his elbows on a pile of linens.  Then Blake pulled again and Adam was lying pressed against Blake.  “Oh, hell no!”

            “Shut up and go to sleep.”

            Adam thrashed.  “Take your fucking hands off of me!”

            “Hey Adam, you remember when I talked about gagging you?  Offer still stands.”

            Adam went quiet.  His heart was trying to pound its way out of his chest as Blake pulled him closer, Adam’s back to his front, one of Blake’s arms snug around his waist, the other tucked under Adam’s neck with Blake’s hand on Adam’s upper shoulder.  Blake’s breath warmed the top of Adam’s head.  Adam clenched his fists, his entire body tense, waiting to see what Blake would do.  But nothing happened.  Blake simply held him in the darkness.

            Anxiety made Adam start to shake, made his teeth chatter.  Blake stirred.  “You cold?”

            “N-no.”  Adam shuddered violently.  “Let go of me!”

            “No.”

            Silence.

            “What are you going to do?” Adam whispered.

            “Hmm?”

            “To me?”

            Blake sighed.  “You’re not cold.  You’re scared.”

            Adam shuddered again.

            Blake tightened his arms around him and Adam whimpered.  “I want you to listen to me,” Blake was saying softly.  “Will you listen?”

            Adam nodded.  “Yes.”

            “What I did to you today?  I’m sorry.  I wish I didn’t have to do it, I wish I could take it back, make it all go away.  I can’t do that, Adam.  But I know what you’re going through.”

            “How the hell can you know what I’m going through?!”

            “First six months I was here, I was raped repeatedly. Guards let it happen.  Hell, they encouraged it.”

            Oh.  Adam squeezed his eyes shut.  “So that’s why you’re doing this?  Revenge?”

            “You really don’t get it!  If I wanted revenge, I would have raped you on that table when I first found you.  I’d have done it again back at the cafeteria.  I don’t want revenge, not on you, not on those guards, not even on the bastards who did it to me.  I get it. Hell, there was a time I told myself that someone like me had it coming!”

            Adam blinked in confusion.  “Huh?”

            “You got no idea who I am, do you, kid?  Eh, that’s ok.  Don’t matter who I was, all that matters is who I am now.  Because after six months of being this prison’s bitch, I broke the neck of the guy who came into my cell.  Then I beat down the four guys who came to teach me a lesson, and everyone else who came after me until I had a reputation as the toughest motherfucker in this prison.  That’s why people don’t get in my way anymore.  Guys learned fast, don’t fuck with Big Country.  And no one touched me again.  A couple of the gangs tried to recruit me, eventually figured out I wasn’t interested, and I was pretty much left alone after that.  Now when I poke my head up, people pay attention, but mostly, I keep to myself.  Just some mean, crazy-ass queer, reading in the corner.”

            Adam shuddered.

            Blake chuckled.  “Ah, I get it.  You just heard I killed a man, that I’ve got a reputation in this prison, and that was fine. But I admit I’m gay, and you shudder!”

            “Because you’ve already told me you’re attracted to me, and I’m tied up and you’re holding me and I can’t get away from you and I don’t know what you’re going to do to me!”  Adam was starting to hyperventilate.

            “All of those things were true before I told you I was gay.”

            “I don’t care that you’re gay, alright?! All I care about is that I don’t know what you’re going to do to me!  I’m freaked out!  I know you saved me twice today, but twice I was almost raped, and it’s fucking with my head, and I just want you to let go of me and leave me alone!”

            “Not gonna happen.”

            “Please!”

            “No.”  Blake bent his arm up, pulling Adam’s head back.  Adam panicked, tried to struggle free.  Blake responded by throwing a leg over Adam.  Then he simply held him still.

            Adam struggled a bit more before he finally regained control.  He lay there, panting and shaking in the darkness as Blake lowered his head, his beard brushing against Adam’s ear.  “I won’t hurt you,” he whispered.  “You got no reason to believe me, so that’s what I’m doing now.”

            “What are you going to do to me?!”

            “I’m going to prove it.”

            “Prove what?”

            “That I won’t hurt you.”

            Adam felt Blake’s lips press against his temple just below his hairline and stilled.  Blake lowered his arm back to Adam’s shoulder and held him close, almost as if he was... hugging Adam?

            It was too much.  All of the fear and pain and humiliation and uncertainty came crashing down on Adam all at once.  He’d already been shaking.  Now harsh sobs wracked his frame.  The added shame of breaking down like this in front of Blake only added to his misery.

            “Adam.”  The arm around Adam’s waist moved up, gently brushed at Adam’s cheeks.  Another kiss to the back of his head.  Then the arm was around him again.

            Belatedly, Adam realized he’d missed his chance to squirm free.  But what was the use?  Blake would only pull him back, maybe hogtie him like he’d threatened.  “P-please...” he sobbed.  “Please, please let me go!  Just let me go.  I won’t run away.  I’ll just go into a corner.  Please, just let go of me!”

            “It’s alright, baby.”  Another kiss on his head.  “Let it out.  I’ll take care of you.”

            Take care of him?  What did that even mean?  But now it was as if a dam broke.  Adam couldn’t stop.  He turned his face into the linens under his head and cried all of his misery out. Then he lay still, exhausted.

            _“When winter calls and the wind won't wait?  Look through the rain, see the leaves start to break.  Once so alone, like a prayer on the sea.  Nothing to hide, so much there to see.  Don't be afraid!  Don't be afraid!”_

            It took Adam a moment to realize that Blake was softly singing to him in the darkness.  And his voice was incredible.  It was pitch perfect and honey smooth, soft now but with a promise of power behind it.  The sound of it was so unexpected that Adam found himself frozen in surprise.

            _“The thoughts you wear like a long lost friend are buried so deep that you can't see them end.  You know spring will come just as quick as you need, and run straight to you when the dark nights are freed!  Don't be afraid!  Don't be afraid!”_

            Blake squeezed him again.  It was a hug.  It could be nothing else.

            _“Don't be afraid!  Don't be afraid!”_

            The song ended.  Adam lay small and quiet in the darkness.  He’d stopped shaking.  Between the venting of his emotions and the unexpected beauty of Blake’s singing, he’d calmed.  Odd. Nothing about his situation had changed. He was still trapped, still bound and held in the arms of a violent sexual predator in the middle of a prison riot. Outside, he could still hear the shouts and laughter from the inmates.  He had no idea what was happening out there.  He didn’t think he wanted to know.  Here, lying in Blake’s arms, he felt...

            He almost felt...

            _Safe._

            “I won’t hurt you, Adam,” Blake whispered, as though reading his thoughts.  “I’ll take care of you.  And I’ll find a way to get you out of here.  But we gotta do things my way.  I need you to trust me.  And for that to happen, we start by establishing that I’m not going to rape you, or assault you, or do any of the things that I either pretended to do or actually did today.  And I can’t promise you that no one is going to hurt you before this is over, but I promise you that I will do all in my power to help you.  It’s all I can do.  If you’ll let me.”

            Adam sucked in his breath.

            “Will you, Adam?” Blake asked.  “Will you let me?  Will you trust me?”

            “Yes,” Adam whispered back.

            It seemed to please Blake.  It earned Adam another squeeze, another kiss, and the freedom of his legs.  Blake pulled a few sheets to cover them both, shifted himself a bit, and pulled Adam close. Then he sighed deeply.  A short time later, he was softly snoring.

            Adam lay as he was.  He was very warm.  He hurt all over, and a pile of linens on the floor was no substitute for a memory foam mattress, but he knew he could do far, far worse.  He sighed and shifted a little, trying to get comfortable.

            Blake’s arms tightened around him.  The big man murmured a bit in his sleep, nuzzled a bit into Adam’s hair.  Then he was snoring again.

            Adam sighed and closed his eyes.  Before he knew it, he was asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Diegetic song is "Don't Be Afraid" by Air Supply  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0uNuAW29lSE


	5. Unwanted Son

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As the riot grows worse, Adam shares some history with Blake

            The police attempted to gain control of the prison early in the morning, well before sunrise.  Their attempt was met with heavy resistance.  From within the dubious safety of the supply closet, Blake and Adam listened in silence to the noise outside, shouts and gunfire and screams.

            “They got into the prison armory,” Adam mumbled. “There’s too much shooting for it to be just on one side.  The inmates are armed and fighting back.  They must have forced one of the corrections officers to unlock the armory.”

            “Well, that doesn’t sound so good,” Blake noted.

            Blake had untied Adam and had him resting between his legs, one arm around Adam’s waist, Adam’s back against Blake’s chest while Blake leaned against the wall behind the shelf.  They were both eating, spooning out of the same large can of cold ravioli, which Adam was holding in his lap.  It was tasteless, cold and chewy.  Adam understood why the inmates complained so much about the food.  But at least it was filling.  Sharing it with Blake didn’t even bother him half as much as it should have. After what Blake put into his mouth yesterday, who cared about the inmate dipping his spoon into the same can Adam was eating from?

            “It’s not good at all,” Adam continued, taking up the conversation between bites.  “If the inmates are armed and using deadly force, that means the police are going to have to use deadly force to counter it.  A lot of people are going to die.  And most of them are going to be inmates!”  Adam shook his head.  “You’d think they’d realize that, that they’re only making things worse for themselves!”

            “This is already way outside of anyone’s control,” Blake said, getting another spoonful of food.  “The only way to end this peacefully is to release all the hostages, visibly put all their guns down, and come out with their hands up. But those assholes aren’t going to do that.  This is about more than just getting demands met or whatever the hell spiked the bullshit out there.  Now it’s a power play.  And most of those bastards are alpha males, too proud and stupid to realize that what they’re doing is only going to get them killed.”

            Adam snorted.  “You’re smarter than you look, Shelton.”

            “Yeah, I get that a lot.”

            “But what about you, Blake?” Adam wanted to know. “You said they should release all their hostages, but what about yours?  Are you going to let me go?”

            “Not a chance in hell of me letting you go, Adam!”

            Adam scowled.  “Too proud and stupid?”

            “Just the opposite.”  Blake’s spoon scraped at the bottom of the nearly-empty can. “Yesterday, those stupid sons of bitches made a video that included me beating the shit out of you, and then forcing you to perform oral sex on me.  I have no doubt they’d be cocky and stupid enough to actually send that to your daddy! And that paints one hell of a target on my head, Adam.  I go out there, I may as well carry a sign saying “Please shoot me” because your daddy’s men are going to be gunning hard for me!  Only way I get out of this is if I go out with you, and you talk real fast, telling everyone what really happened!”

            Adam went quiet.  He set his spoon aside, suddenly lacking an appetite.  “That’s if my father even gives a shit!”

            Blake paused.  “You seriously going to tell me that you daddy isn’t going to care that some filthy inmate was beating and then sexually assaulting his boy?”

            “He’d probably say I brought it on myself!”

            “Now I don’t believe that for one damned minute! No daddy would think that about his son being attacked in a prison riot!  I don’t care how bad the feelings got between y’all, no man would stand for his boy being attacked the way he would have seen me attacking you!”

            “Blake, do me a favor and shut up?  You have no idea what the fuck you’re even talking about!”

            “Fine!”  Blake threw his spoon down, tossed the empty can aside, and wrapped both arms around Adam, pulling him closer.  “Then tell me.”

            Adam scowled and clawed at Blake’s arms. “Leave me the fuck alone!  Dammit, Blake, take your hands off of me!”

            “Then I’m tying you up again.”

            “Fuck you!”

            “Adam, if anyone comes in here, I have to look like I’m in control of you.  That means you’re either tied up, or I’m physically controlling you.  Otherwise, it’s game over, and when every convict with a grudge against your daddy is done raping you?  Assuming you survive it, you have to hope they don’t decide to hang, pull, and quarter you and post it on Youtube!  So make your choice!”  He dramatically spread his arms wide, holding them well away from Adam.  “Go ahead, kid!  Take your chances!”

            Adam scowled even harder.  He cursed under his breath and made a show of pulling Blake’s arms around himself.

            Blake tightened his arms and pulled Adam in. “Wise choice.”

            “Fuck you.”

            “You have such a pretty mouth on you, don’t you, kid?  I bet your momma’s so proud!”

            “My mom’s dead.  She died giving birth to me.  I think that’s a good part of why my dad hates me so much.”

            Awkward silence is, in and of itself, awkward. After an uncomfortable minute or so, Blake sighed, lowered his face into Adam’s hair, and gently kissed him.  “I’m sorry.”

            Adam rapidly shook his head, pulling away from Blake as much as the arms around him permitted.  “Don’t kiss me, Blake!  Just don’t! I’m letting you hold me because I have to, but for fuck’s sake, keep your hands, and your lips, off of me!”

            Silence once more filled the storage closet.

            Outside in the halls, another rapid burst of gunfire sounded, followed by more screams, shouts, and return fire.  Both men stiffened.  “That’s closer,” Adam called.

            Blake nodded.  “Yeah.”

            “What happens if it comes this way?”

            “We’ll play it as it comes.”  Blake looked around.  “We can stay in here, hide back behind the shelves here.  Everyone already knows I’m not into the prison drama bullshit, so it’s not too surprising that I’d want to keep you to myself and stay out of the fighting.  But when the cops start getting the upper hand, well, the warden’s kid is going to be one hell of a bargaining chip!”

            Adam scoffed.  “Like that bastard would bargain for me!”

            “True or not, those fuckers outside don’t know that, do they?”

            Good point.  Adam shivered and pulled his legs up, wrapping his arms defensively around them. He lowered his head, resting his forehead on his arms.  “I never wanted to be here,” he called.

            “Yeah, me either, kid.”

            Adam snorted.  “I’m sure, like every inmate here, that you’re perfectly innocent and wrongfully convicted, Blake.  But my crime was being born, ok?”

            Blake didn’t respond.

            Adam sighed.  “You want to hear this story?”

            “I’m willing to listen if you’re willing to talk?”

            “It’s a great story, Blake.  Once upon a time, there was an unwanted son whose father never got over the loss of his wife.  The father had older sons who went on to be successful, he remarried three times, divorced three times, and had other kids who all went with their moms, but that unwanted son remained.  And that son was a massive fuck-up.  He was always in trouble at school, his grades sucked.  He managed to graduate high school and by some miracle made it into a local community college.  But when he got there, he was way more into partying and getting laid than he was his classes and he failed out his very first semester.  It’s a lot like those TV ads, where the announcer yells, ‘But wait, there’s more!’  Because wait, there’s more, Blake!  The screw-off son didn’t do any better in the workforce than he did in school.  And after he got fired from his third job, got drunk, and got arrested for DUI, his dad finally had enough.  He told the son that he had two choices.  He could work as a corrections officer in his prison, stay in the on-campus housing at the prison and have a steady income, benefits, and some hope for a future.  Or, he could be completely cut off, thrown out with only the clothes on his back, and live on the streets.  So the unwanted son took what was behind door A.  And that’s how he came to be here, in this shithole, for a bunch of sick bastards to grab and use as a pawn against a father that never really wanted him in the first place!”  Adam was breathing hard, his fists clenched.  “And there it is.  Great story, huh?”

            “I’d say it’s a fairly incomplete story. Seems to me your daddy cared at least something for you, if he offered you this job.  If he really hated you as much as you think he did, wouldn’t he just throw you out on the street without making that offer?”

            Adam scoffed.  “Don’t make too much out of that, Blake.  Marlon Levine doesn’t give a shit about me, but he does give a shit about his reputation.  He’d already busted me doing drugs.  He knew if I was on the street, I’d get into drugs fast and probably end up selling it on the corner to pay for it!”

            “That’s harsh.”

            “Yes it is.  That’s also exactly what he said.  Word for word.  To my face. Yeah,” Adam continued as he felt Blake stiffen.  “He said he didn’t need the embarrassment of a hooker son earning money for drugs on his knees or taking it up the ass.  He also informed me that if I refused this job or got fired, he was dropping me off halfway across the country where I couldn’t embarrass him.  So yeah, Blake.  When he saw that video, saw what you did to me?  He probably figured I deserved it.”

            The arms around Adam suddenly grew uncomfortably tight.  Adam squirmed.  “Quit it!”

            The arms loosened.  But then they both froze, hearing the sound of shouting coming towards them.  “Shit!” Blake pushed Adam away, getting quickly to his feet.  Adam was just getting up when Blake grabbed him.  “Get your pants down!”

            “What?!”

            “Do it!”  Blake was already pushing down his own pants, pulling Adam back behind the linen shelf.

            Adam obeyed, pushing his pants down around his thighs.  Blake swore and dragged down his underwear.  Adam instinctively yelped and tried to pull them back up, but Blake grabbed him, swept his legs out from under him, and threw him down hard on the floor behind the shelf.  Adam cried out in pain.  “Son of a...! OOF!”  Blake had just dove on top of him, driving most of the air out of his lungs and hurting his already-battered body. He gasped for air, shoving at Blake only to have Blake catch both of his arms, wrapping his own arms around Adam’s and pushing Adam roughly against the floor.  Adam’s ribs screamed in protest.  “Get off of me!  Get off! Hey, stop that!”

            “Shut up!”  Blake was thrusting his hips, grinding against Adam’s ass.

            Furious, Adam was struggling wildly when the door opened and three armed inmates looked in.  They took in the sight of Adam on the floor with Blake on top of him, both of them with their pants down and Adam fighting to get free.  Blake looked up with a growl, not slowing his thrusting motions.  “Shut the fucking door!”

            “Is this where you been all this time, Shelton?” The three inmates appeared very amused. “We got World War Three going on out here, and where are you?  In a closet, fucking the warden’s kid!”

            Blake paused in his motions.  “Problem?!”

            Blake was a devious son of a bitch.  He shoved his fingers viciously into Adam’s damaged ribs, making Adam cry out in pain just as he thrust his hips roughly forward again.  “Get off of me!”

            “Shut the fuck up!  And you three?” Blake ordered.  “Get out!”

            “Damn, Big Country, there ain’t gonna be nothing left of that bitch by the time you’re done!”

            “Try to leave at least a piece of him?  We might need him later!”

            “He ain’t going anywhere.”  Another poke to Adam’s ribs as Blake thrust forward, bringing another cry of pain.  “Take a hike! Can’t you see I’m busy?”

            Laughter from the inmates.  But they shut the door and went on their way.

            Adam snarled.  “Get.  The fuck. Off of me!”

            “Just relax, kid,” Blake whispered.  “We need to wait, make sure they’re not coming back... Alright.”  Blake climbed off of Adam, helped the smaller man get up. “Sorry about the ribs.  Had to make it genuine.  You ok?”

            “Peachy.”  Adam gingerly fingered his ribs.  Then he quickly pulled up his pants.  His face flamed.

            Blake watched him, quietly pulling up his own clothing.  “You really believe your daddy would think that you had something like what I pretended to do to you just now coming?  You honestly believe that?”

            “Yeah, Blake, I do.”  Adam had turned away from the big inmate and was standing facing the wall, his arms wrapped tightly over himself, trying to be calm.  When Blake came up behind him and wrapped his arms around him, Adam didn’t bother to protest.

            “Adam, we could find out one way or another?” Blake suggested, speaking softly into Adam’s ear.  “The infirmary’s most likely been well cleaned out, but there’s a TV there, mounted on the wall.  What’s going on in here has got to be all over the news.  Maybe your daddy made a statement, mentioned you?”

            “I doubt it.”

            “Let’s find out.”

            Adam looked up.  “You want to take me to the infirmary?”

            “Yeah.”  He paused, hearing more gunfire.  “That’s getting just a little too close for comfort, so we should probably move anyway. I gotta tie you up again, but we can go down to the infirmary, maybe even stay down there.  We can use a bit of the tomato sauce from that ravioli on the seat of your pants.  That gives us a reason to be down there.”

            “Why would...  Oh.”  Adam grimaced.  Of course. After the way Blake supposedly treated him, it wouldn’t be much of a leap to think that Adam might need some medical assistance.  “I just don’t see the point of it, Blake, honestly.”

            “The point of it is your own peace of mind,” Blake urged.  “I get the impression that there’s a lot to that story you ain’t telling me.  Your daddy hit you?”

            Adam nodded.  “Yeah.”

            “He do anything else?”

            “No, Blake!  He didn’t molest me or anything like that, ok?  He slapped me around a bit when I was a kid, and again when I failed out of college, but that’s it.  And he didn’t even hurt me that badly, ok?  He just slapped me around!  Didn’t do anything worse than leave red marks.  I’m not making excuses for him, but I don’t really consider myself an abused child, ok?”

            “Then how about giving the guy a chance, hear what he has to say?”  Blake picked up the rope.  “Come on. Let’s find out!”

            Adam sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “You’re not going to give up on this, are you?”

            “Nope!  And since I own your tattooed ass right now, we’re going, because now I’m curious. Inquiring minds want to know!  Now gimme your hands, and let’s go find out what your daddy has to say.”

            Adam groaned loudly.  Then he held out his hands.  It wasn’t like he really had much of a choice.


	6. Headliner

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Blake and Adam head to the infirmary, where they can check the TV and see what's happening outside. Adam learns the reason Blake is in prison.

            Fortunately for Adam they didn’t pass many inmates on the way to the infirmary.  Those they did encounter did little more than glance at Blake as he led Adam through the halls.  Naturally, the infirmary had been well and thoroughly looted.  Empty cabinets lay open, trash was scattered over the floor. The prison’s supply of drugs had been a prime target, naturally.  Empty bottles and pill containers were scattered around.  It must have been one hell of a party.  Three inmates were obviously high in one corner, giggling and staring at nothing in adjunct fascination.  Blake calmly dragged them out by their ankles, leaving them, still giggling, in the hall.  Then he closed and locked the door.

            Adam was right there in his personal space when he turned, holding his bound hands up.  “Ok, door’s locked.  Mission complete.  Now let me go.”

            “Not happening.”

            “Come on, Blake, let me go!  We’re safe now, right?  What’s the problem?  The fucking door is locked!”

            “There are windows, Adam, don’t be stupid!  I know you want loose, but even though we’re probably safer in here with the locked doors and bulletproof glass, we still gotta be careful.  Anyone who passes by out there can see in.  And don’t forget.  Those fuckers got in here in the first place even though the door was probably locked. You’re a guard.  Didn’t you have a key to that door on your key ring?  Yeah,” Blake continued, seeing the look on Adam’s face.  “A locked door isn’t going to be much help if someone out there decides they really want to come inside here.  We gotta make damned sure they got no reason to want to come in and check things out. That means we keep up the act. And sorry, but that also means you’re staying tied up!”

            Adam sulked.  He knew Blake was right, but at the same time, he desperately wanted untied. He hadn’t had his ADHD meds. Already, his nerves were singing, his thoughts racing.  He couldn’t hold still.  Being bound was only making it worse.  Adam was ready to go out of his mind.  He didn’t know how much longer he could stand the enforced confinement.

            Then Blake had to go and make it worse by taking advantage of his proximity to pull him in and kiss him again.  Adam shoved and kicked him away.  “What the...?  Get off of me!”

            “Adam?”

            Adam looked up, saw the inmates passing by outside and groaned.  Well, fuck them.  He still wasn’t letting Blake kiss him.  He’d been fighting all this time, no reason to stop now.  Adam struggled, shoving at Blake, and gasped when Blake raised a threatening hand.  “No more,” Blake told him.  “You need to stop fighting.”

            “Fuck you!”

            “Or do I need to beat the shit out of you again?!” Blake threatened.  “They can’t hear you out there, Adam, but they sure as hell can see you.  And I think it’s time you stopped struggling. Don’t you think you would have learned your lesson by now?”

            Adam doubted it.  His father’s biggest complaint about his youngest son from his first marriage was that Adam was unbelievably stubborn.  He’d gotten into this mess in the first place because he wouldn’t stop fighting with his father.  But after what Blake would have put him through, would Adam still have been fighting?  Could Adam have kept his fighting spirit, even through multiple beatings and brutal sexual assaults?

            Blake grabbed his shoulders and shook him. “I’m just as tired of hurting you as you are of being hurt, alright?  So it is time to play nice!  Now c’mere.”

            Blake was kissing him again.  Son of a bitch.  Blake wanted Adam to stop fighting, and he wanted to keep kissing him? This seemed like a convenient way for Blake to do what he wanted to do anyway without Adam fighting.  But what could he do?  Blake was right.

            Still, Adam thought the big hairy hick took it too far.  After kissing Adam, he’d climbed on one of the beds, raised the head, and then pulled Adam up onto it as well.  He adjusted Adam so that his back was against Blake’s chest, Adam’s body resting between Blake’s legs.  Then Blake wrapped his arms around Adam and nuzzled at Adam’s neck.  It was too much.  Adam squirmed, twisted away.  “Ok, seriously, Blake, leave me alone!”

            Blake snorted.  But he left Adam’s neck alone.  He kept one arm around Adam as he worked the remote for the TV.  Sure enough, the riot at the prison was the lead story.  Of course. The police had just tried to retake the prison by force, and had failed.  Especially now that it was over, the titillated public would want to know how much blood, how many deaths, how many bullets.  Adam himself was anxious for news.

            Adam grew quiet and still as he listened to the reports.  Six cops. Six cops had died trying to retake the prison.  God alone knew how many corrections officers or inmates had died.  Adam bowed his head.  Six families had just lost loved ones, all in the name of doing their duty to protect the public after Adam and his fellow corrections officers had failed in their job of containing the inmates.  In a real way, the death of those six cops rested on Adam’s head. The weight of that burden was heavy.

            But now the anchorwoman was warning viewers. “The video we received was emailed exclusively to us, and has so far only been viewed by our producers and the police.  We’d like to take a moment to advise viewer discretion.  This is unedited video from within the prison during the riot and shows inmates brutalizing one of the guards.  What you’re about to see is very disturbing.”

            Here it was, the video from last night.  The inmates had carried out their threat to send the video of Adam’s attack out for his father to see.

            It looked even worse than it had felt.  Adam shuddered, seeing how his body had bounced with each blow from the big inmate, seeing himself battered and bleeding. Blake towered over him, brutalizing the helpless man on the video.  It was hard for Adam to recognize that this was really him, that he had actually gone through this and survived.  But then it got worse, Blake ordering Adam to his knees.  The video froze on an image of a battered, defeated Adam on his knees, looking up helplessly at Blake as the big inmate stood over him.

            Adam closed his eyes and shuddered.

            “We’d like to apologize again for those disturbing images,” the anchor was saying.  “At that point in the video, the victim, identified as Corrections Officer Adam Levine, was forced to commit a sexual act on the inmate who’d just beaten him. Police have identified the inmate as Blake Tollison Shelton.  Shelton is currently serving a life sentence for the sexual assault and murder of a twelve-year-old boy.  Some of the other inmates seen in the video have...”

            Adam froze.  Blake’s arm seemed heavy around him.  The inmate’s breath warmed Adam’s ear and Adam flinched.  “Let go of me.”

            “Adam...?”

            “Take your hands off of me, Blake!  Let me go!”  Adam strained, feeling sick.  This was the man he’d believed had saved him?  This was the man he’d almost been stupid enough to relax his guard around, to actually trust?!  Blake Shelton, in prison for the sexual assault and murder of a little boy.  No wonder Blake was on the sexual offenders’ ward!

            Blake stubbornly held him.  “Adam!  What’s the matter with you?  Why are you...”  He sucked in his breath.  “You didn’t know?  You really didn’t know why I was in here?  Aw, shit!”

            Adam’s skin crawled where Blake touched him. “Let go of me, you sick fuck!”

            Blake shook him.  “This sick fuck is your only chance at getting out of here without getting your puckery little asshole stretched over some inmate’s dick!  Now I’m sorry, alright?  I got you didn’t know who I was, my reputation, but I honestly thought you knew what I’d done to get in here, or I’d have told you a long time ago.  But it don’t make one damned bit of difference now.”

            “The hell it doesn’t!”

            “It don’t matter, Adam, because nothing has changed!”  Blake’s hand came up, caught Adam’s chin.  His other arm held him tight while his hand forced Adam’s head back.  “There ain’t one damned thing that has changed,” Blake repeated, whispering into Adam’s ear.  “You are still the warden’s kid.  And I am still the only chance you’ve got.  Now you don’t have to like me.  God knows I can’t blame you.  But you do have to trust me!  It’s that, or you take your chances with that crowd from last night.  Your choice, Levine!”

            Adam felt ill.  He desperately wanted Blake to take his hands off of him, for the sick fuck to go crawling back into the sewage where he belonged and never touch Adam again.  But Blake was right.  Adam had no choice.  He shuddered and forced himself to relax, lie back against Blake’s chest.  Blake “rewarded” him with another kiss and Adam nearly threw up.  Fortunately it was on his temple.  If Blake kissed Adam on his mouth again, Adam was sure he’d be sick right into Blake’s mouth.

            Suddenly, Blake sucked in his breath.  “Isn’t that your daddy?”

            Adam looked up.  There he was, Warden Marlon Levine, larger than life on the screen. Of his brothers, Adam knew he most resembled his father.  One of his older brothers was there now, standing next to the warden.  Levi, dressed like the shark lawyer he was, standing in support of his father and brother.  Adam had no doubt that Benjamin would have been there too if he could be.  After what the whole world believed they had just seen happen to their brother, to not show up now was some bad PR.  But Ben was a high-powered executive, too busy making millions to be able to fake concern for his brother in front of the cameras.  Ben and Levi were his father’s pride.  Only Adam was the screw-up.  And his brothers never missed the chance to be certain Adam was aware of that fact.

            But Marlon Levine’s press conference had begun. Blake helpfully turned up the volume on the television before again wrapping both arms around Adam.  “I am speaking now not as the warden of this prison, but as the father of my son,” the warden was saying.  “Adam is not responsible for your incarceration.  He is not in charge of the prison.  He is simply doing a job, just as my other corrections officers are doing.  I am here today to negotiate their release.  I will cooperate in every way I am able.  You’ve won.  I stand before you a broken, humbled man.  All I want is to have Adam and the others safely home.  Please, don’t hurt my son anymore to get to me.  Don’t punish Adam for being my boy!”

            Pictures were being displayed now behind the warden, Adam as a child.  Adam was surprised to see them.  He hadn’t thought Marlon Levine would want to keep reminders of his youngest son around. “Adam was always a gentle boy.  He never knew his mother, but he was the most like her.  Sweet. Loving.  Kind.  Adam doesn’t deserve what was done to him.  He doesn’t deserve to be brutalized and humiliated as you have done, just for the crime of being my son!  I know that many of you are fathers yourselves.  Please think of how you would feel, seeing your son beaten and abused as you’ve done to mine!”

            The warden paused, and Adam froze, staring in shock.  Was Marlon Levine...  _Crying?_

            “Adam never even wanted to take this job.  He wanted to be a rock star!  He can play the drums and guitar.  And he can sing!  He’s got a beautiful singing voice.  Adam can empathize with others in a way that I and his brothers never could.  Talk to him, and you’ll see for yourself! Please, I beg of you.  Don’t hurt Adam anymore.  Let Adam and the other COs go, and I give you my word, as a warden and as a father, that we will end this peacefully.  We’ll listen to your demands.  Just contact us, tell us what it will take for you to give up your hostages and end this.  And please, don’t hurt my boy anymore.  Please.”

            “That was Warden Marlon Levine, in a passionate plea for his son.  Here with us today is prison expert Mr...”

            Adam stopped listening.  He’d been crying.  His father, iron tough Marlon Levine, had actually been crying, right on national television.  Proud, merciless Warden Levine had begged, literally _begged,_ for Adam.  Adam didn’t know what to think.

            “I told you, Rockstar,” Blake was saying. “I told you.  Your daddy doesn’t want any of this shit to happen to you! He only wants you to be safe. He’s going to negotiate, to work with these bastards in here.  That’s all they want!  If Warden Levine would just listen to people, try to work with them instead of always just barking orders?  We could end this shit fast, Rockstar!  And he’s doing it all for you.  I told you! I told you your daddy still cares about you!”

            Adam was to stunned to reply.  But then Blake got his mind off of what he’d just seen by kissing him again.  The inmate was wiping at the tears Adam hadn’t realized were flowing, rocking Adam like he was a child, and kissing him over and over.  Adam wanted to fight, to scream at Blake to let go of him!  Blake was a child molester and murderer.  No wonder the guards had allowed him to be assaulted for the first six months.  Adam never had agreed with the practice, but he’d quickly come to learn it was a common one with new convicted child molesters.  And it wasn’t confined to this prison, either.  Even the other inmates hated those who preyed on children. If Blake hadn’t proven to be a fighter, he never would have lasted a year in this or any other prison.  And now “Big Country” Blake Shelton, murderer and child molester, had Adam completely in his power.  It was not a pleasant thought.

            _He can do whatever he wants to me, and no one will stop him.  If he took me back to the cafeteria and defiled me right on one of the tables, they’d film it and send it to my dad!  But staying with him is the only way I’m going to get out of this. What do I do?  What the hell am I supposed to do?!_

            He’d tried running away, and that hadn’t worked out. He thought about trying to get some sort of message to the police outside, but that was just too risky.  If Blake, or worse, another inmate saw Adam’s message, Adam would lose the scant protection Blake provided.  And convicted child molester and murderer or not, Blake Shelton, Adam realized with a sinking heart, was the only real option he had. There was no choice.  He had to stay with Blake.

            Blake was still rocking him.  He’d stopped kissing Adam and had wrapped both arms tightly around the smaller man, holding him close.  Blake seemed to genuinely want to comfort Adam.  And it was surprisingly comforting, despite what Blake was.  Alright. Adam could put up with this.  He could stay with Blake, let Blake protect him. But already, Blake was taking so many liberties with Adam, touching and holding and kissing him.  How long before Blake was no longer satisfied with hugs and kisses?  How long before Blake wanted more?

            Adam’s mind returned to the video he’d seen of Blake beating him.  He’d had Adam completely in his power.  Blake was so much larger, stronger.  He could have hurt Adam so much more than he had.  Even now, Adam couldn’t get away.  Adam’s hands were tied, Blake’s arms around him.  They were alone here, behind a locked door.  If Blake wanted to, he could push Adam down right now, hold him down on this bed and take what he wanted.  Because it was obvious what Blake wanted.  The only question now was how much Adam was willing to give.  How much was his own life worth?  Was letting Blake touch him, use him like that worth the protection Blake offered?  Adam shuddered.

            “Shh, I got ya, Rockstar.  Ain’t no one gonna hurt you now.”

            Blake still thought Adam was upset over his father. He wasn’t wrong.  But Adam’s thoughts were flying now.  He had no doubt he wouldn’t survive it if he fell into the hands of the general inmate population.  Many of them had been convicted of crimes as bad or worse than Blake’s.  Adam flashed back to when they’d first captured him and taken him into the laundry room.  All those men, holding him down, their hands all over him...  No.  He couldn’t let that happen.  Adam had no idea if he could stand to let Blake violate him either, but one inmate was surely better than a gang of them!

            He’d have to be clever.  If he gave in too fast or too easily, Blake would suspect something.  Adam needed to move slowly.  Alright. He could start here.

            Adam leaned back against Blake, forcing his body to relax into the chest of the monster that held him.  “You were right,” he whispered.  “I never would have believed it, but my father was crying!  He really does care about me!”

            That was open to debate.  Part of Adam couldn’t help but wonder if Marlon Levine had been putting on an act.  The tears seemed genuine, but there were ways to fake those.  Hollywood did it all the time, after all.  But Blake didn’t know that.  Blake wanted to believe, or at least wanted Adam to believe, that his father’s concern had been genuine.  Adam could use that.

            “Every daddy cares about his boy,” Blake was saying, confirming Adam’s secret thoughts.  “I cannot imagine what that must have been like for him, seeing me beat you and then...”  The arms tightened around Adam.  Blake’s beard scratched at his skin as Blake buried his face in Adam’s neck.  “I’m so, so sorry, baby!  I wish there was some way I could let your daddy know it wasn’t real, but I guess it was real enough that it wouldn’t matter to him.  No daddy should have to stand for what I did to you.”

            _How about your victim’s daddy, Blake?  Did he stand for what you did?  How the fuck can you do this, worry about Marlon Levine and what you did to me after what you did to an innocent child?!_

            No.  Don’t think like that.  _Focus, Levine!_   “I never knew he cared about me at all,” Adam forced himself to say aloud. “I can’t believe he begged!”

            “He was just hoping someone in here was listening. And someone was.  I’ll find a way to get you out of this, Adam, and back to your daddy.  I swear it!”

            Now to seal it up.  Adam forced himself to lean into Blake, to actually turn his face towards Blake when all he wanted to do was struggle away.  “Thank you,” he said.  “Get me out of here, Blake, and I’ll tell them what you really did to help me. I’ll make this right somehow, if you’ll only help me!”

            “I’m here, Rockstar.  I’m right here, baby!”

            More kisses.  Alright.  Seeds planted, now it was time to draw back a little.  “Just please stop kissing me, ok?”

            Perfect.  He’d always been told he couldn’t act, but Blake seemed to have bought into his act completely, if the belly laugh that now erupted was any indication.  “Sorry, kid.  Gotta make it look good, you know?”

            “Sure.”  _Sure, Blake.  Who do you think you’re kidding?  You were kissing me for the same reason you’re still holding me, because you want to.  You sick fuck!_

            For the first time since the riot began, Adam had a plan.  Now he just had to pray for the strength to pull it off. Hopefully, the riot would end and he’d be rescued before Blake forced things too far.


	7. Pawn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The leaders in the prison riot want to use Adam as a bargaining chip against Warden Levine

            One moment Adam had been sleeping against Blake, untied at last, lost in a dream of freedom.  And the next a rough hand had him by the arm and was jerking the startled corrections officer off of the bed.  Adam suddenly felt himself falling and was instantly awake.  He yelped, barely managing to get his feet under him before the hand on his arm jerked him forward again.  Growling, Adam pried at the other man’s fingers.  “Let go of me!”

            “The fuck?!”  Blake caught Adam’s free arm, and suddenly Adam’s arms got yanked into an impromptu tug-of-war.  “What do you mean, ‘We need him?’  You better start talking!”

            “Fucking let go of me!”  Adam kicked at the other inmate.

            The man swore.  “Damn, Big Country, can’t you control this bitch?!”

            Blake ground his teeth and jerked Adam away from the other inmate.  “Why don’t you let me worry about controlling him and explain to me exactly why you came in here and put your hands on my property?!”

            “Simple.  Warden wants to see him.”

            Blake cocked an eyebrow.  “He wants proof the hostages are still alive?”

            “We already showed ‘em most of the others. But Warden Levine wants to see his kid before we get anything we asked for.  So now we gotta take him up to the roof so daddy can see his little boy’s still alive.”  The inmate’s eyes flicked appraisingly over Adam.  “Doesn’t look too much worse for the wear.”

            Blake snorted.  “Damage is pretty much covered.  If Warden Levine wants to see his kid, I’ll handle it, but then he’s coming back with me.  This little shit is mine!”

            “Yeah, yeah, calm down, Shelton.  Just come on, let’s get him on the roof!”  The inmate produced a set of handcuffs and keys and tossed them on the bed next to Blake and Adam.  “Fifteen minutes.”

            “Fine.  Get out.”

            The inmate raised his hands in surrender and headed out.

            Adam looked fearfully at Blake.  “What are you going to do?”

            “Take you to the roof.”

            “What?!  Are you crazy?!”

            “Adam, there was a huge fight this morning between the cops and the inmates.  That means flying bullets and a lot of dead bodies.  Now your daddy wants proof you’re still alive,” Blake explained patiently. “Even if that man didn’t have the right to know his boy’s still breathing, as a warden he needs to know who’s still alive and therefore in need of rescue.”

            Adam nodded.  “I understand that.  But if my dad’s specifically asking about me, isn’t that just making me a target?”

            “You’re already a target, kid.”  Blake’s voice was soft as he handcuffed Adam’s hands behind his back.  “You’ve been a target since the day you walked in wearing that uniform.  The fact your name’s Levine?  That only makes you a more tempting target!  And after that bullshit in the cafeteria?  Trust me, whatever faction is currently in charge out there, they are well aware of who you are.”

            Adam shuddered.  Blake was right.  Of course they’d all known who he was.  That had been evident from what had happened in the cafeteria.  Adam was in terrible danger.  And right now, the only one who might be able to help him had just put handcuffs on him.  Alright, think.  He still needed Blake to believe Adam would accept him.  Now was as good as a time as any to further that plan.  Adam turned and buried his face in Blake’s shoulder. “Please don’t let them hurt me?”

            The arms of the child molester wrapped around him, the lips of a monster pressed into his hair.  “I’ll do what I can.  You gotta trust me, Rockstar.”

            “I do, Blake.  I trust you.”  _What choice do I have?_

            Another kiss, another squeeze, and Blake was taking Adam’s arm, leading him to the roof.

            It was like walking a gauntlet.  Blake had gotten them both clean prison clothes to wear. Now, with his hands cuffed behind his back, Adam suddenly understood what it felt like to be a prisoner.  He immediately decided he didn’t care for it. If he’d ever been arrested and sentenced to prison, Adam was sure it would have been a deterrent for him against ever again committing another crime.

            Of course now, he was largely on display. On either side of him as he walked, prisoners were lined up, watching him pass.  Some of them were armed.  Most of them simply stood with their hands on their hips or crossed over their chests, watching him.  Some of them leered, some wolf whistled or blew kisses.  Most just watched him with an unfriendly stare.  Adam found himself hunching up defensively and walking closer to Blake.  Blake tightened his hand on Adam’s arm.  It was oddly comforting.

            The access to the roof was via a slanting ladder. Adam paused and turned his back towards Blake, expecting to be released so he could climb the ladder.  But instead, Blake slipped an arm around Adam, lifted the man completely off of his feet, and climbed the ladder carrying him. That was an impressive feat of physical strength that left Adam more than a little intimidated.  It was also nerve wracking.  Adam held perfectly still, wide-eyed and expecting to be dropped at any second.  But Blake quickly went up the ladder and a moment later, Adam’s feet were on the roof.

            The roof was intended to be accessed only for maintenance.  Adam had never been up here before.  He’d only been working in the prison for a few months, and he was a corrections officer, not maintenance.  Fortunately, he wasn’t afraid of heights.  But Blake may have been a different story, at least where Adam was concerned. He’d held on to Adam’s arm again as they walked out onto the roof, where a group of heavily-armed inmates waited.  And once they were near the edge where the inmates directed them, Blake’s arm went back around Adam’s waist again, wrapping tight and holding Adam close against Blake’s side.  It almost seemed that Blake was afraid Adam would fall, or be pushed.

            Adam didn’t recognize most of the inmates. They didn’t seem to be from his section, but they all looked rough.  Adam recognized several gang tattoos.  Interesting enough, they seemed to be from different gangs.  That was unusual.  Apparently, the rival gangs had worked things out, at least enough to work together and lead this riot.

            One of them approached and Blake stiffened, his arm tightening even more around Adam.  The inmate gave Blake a grin.  “Hey, I remember you!  You look a hell of a lot better with short hair and clean-shaven.”

            “Things change.”  Blake’s voice was a low growl.  “A lot of things.”

            The man’s grin widened.  “You fucking loved it, Shelton.”

            “It’s water under the bridge, Roderick, unless you want to come back inside and settle it between the two of us again?” Blake challenged.  “That’s the only way you’re touching me or him!”

            Adam stopped breathing for a moment as understanding hit.  This man, Roderick, obviously had history with Blake.  And if their comments to each other were any indication, that history included Roderick being one of the inmates who had attacked Blake back when Blake first came to the prison.

            But Blake was remarkably calm for someone facing down his former rapist.  Except for how tight his arm was around Adam, the big man seemed relaxed, almost bored. And apparently, Blake’s hard-earned respect still held sway.  Roderick laughed and looked away from Blake to regard Adam.  The way his eyes roamed over Adam made his skin crawl.  “This your new toy?  Ain’t he a little old for your tastes?”

            Blake’s response was to roughly kiss Adam.  “He tastes just fine,” Blake announced.  “Now you wanted him here, I brought him here, so let’s get this shit over with so I can take him back!”

            That brought some laughter from the inmates. Adam looked down, feeling his cheeks flame in shame.  Naturally, they all believed they knew what Blake had been doing to him.  Swallow your pride, Levine.  If they don’t think it’s happening, then chances are high it actually will.

            The inmate was gesturing with his weapon. “Let him loose.  They want him to stand right up on the edge of the roof there so they can see him and talk on the phone.”

            “I’ll bring him up.”

            “No,” Roderick corrected.  “They want him unconfined and uncoerced, meaning he stands up there at the edge alone and we all step back and let him talk.  Warden wants a private chat, apparently.”

            That surprised Adam.  Blake obviously didn’t like it, if the way his free hand clutched at Adam’s arm was any indication.  But the big man didn’t have much of a choice.  He reluctantly let go of Adam and undid the handcuffs.  Before Adam could start forward, Blake grabbed him again, wrapping his arms around Adam and licking at the side of his face. “You be careful,” he whispered into Adam’s ear.

            Revolting.  Adam knew Blake was using this further bit of degradation as an excuse to whisper to him, but also knew Blake had ulterior motives.  His face flamed again as he pulled away.  The other inmates laughed.  “Told you he tastes fine!” Blake called.

            More laughter.

            Adam didn’t even bother wiping at his face. He grimaced and stepped forward, moving towards the edge of the roof.  One of Roderick’s cronies was on the phone.  He gestured towards the narrow raised brick edge of the roof, rising up about a foot above the roof, and indicated that Adam should stand there.

            Adam stepped up onto it.  Now the toes of his work shoes protruded slightly over the edge. Below him was nothing but the concrete sidewalk.  Looking out, Adam could see the throng of people and vehicles that surrounded the prison. A sizeable crowd had gathered back behind the police barricades.  Flashing lights were everywhere.  A helicopter hovered, no doubt sending live video back to the studio.  An abundance of men in riot gear milled around outside the prison fence. 

            Adam swallowed, feeling very much on display and vulnerable.  One push, and he’d fall to either his death or serious injury.  These men hated his father.  Did they hate Warden Marlon Levine enough to push his son off of the prison roof right before his eyes?

            “Heeeere’s daddy!” the inmate with the phone called cheerfully, handing it to Adam.

            Adam accepted it and raised it to his ear. “This is Adam Levine.”

            “Adam!”  His father’s voice was full of relief.  “Are you alright?  No, that was a stupid question, of course you’re not alright.  How badly are you hurt?”

            “I’m not hurt bad,” Adam assured.  “Just some bruises and cuts, maybe a cracked rib or two.”

            “And are you, I mean, do you need medical attention? What they did to you, are you injured inside, Adam?”

            Inside?  It took a moment for Adam to understand what his father meant.  Then he grimaced.  “I’m alright. It’s not, like, a bunch of people attacking me like they’re doing to some of the others, dad.  It’s just one guy who has me.”

            “Blake Shelton.”  His father spat the words like they were a curse.

            “Yeah.  Blake has me. But it’s just Blake.”

            “That’s bad enough!  Adam, I’m so sorry, son!  I cannot believe that this happened, that they took you and the things that sick bastard did...!”  To Adam’s shock, a sob came through the phone.  “I’ll make him pay for touching you, Adam, I swear it!  Whatever he’s done, or whatever he continues to do to you, it won’t last!  I’m going to get you out of there, do you hear me, boy?  You just hang on!”

            Adam squeezed his eyes shut and lowered his head. It was true.  Blake had been right.  His father actually did care.  Adam’s heart ached, and tears burned the backs of his eyes that he refused to let fall.  His father cared, and thought he’d been raped, that he’d continue to be raped as long as he was in Blake’s power.  Marlon Levine needed to know the truth.

            Adam dared to look back and verify that the inmates were standing away from him.  Then he lowered his voice.  “Dad, what you saw on the video, it wasn’t as bad as it looked.  Blake, he’s helping me.  Yeah, he beat me up pretty bad, but the rest of it?  It wasn’t what it looked like, ok?  That whole thing was just for show, so the rest of the bastards in here leave me alone!  And Blake never raped me, ok?  It didn’t happen, he just made it look like it did!”

            Silence on the other end of the phone.  Adam’s eyes scanned the crowd outside of the fence. Somewhere out there, his father was watching him, probably on a monitor from within one of the tactical vehicles. When Marlon Levine spoke again, his voice was far steadier.  “Adam, I’m going to give the phone back to the negotiator.  Do you remember Carson Daly?”

            “Yeah.”  Daly had done the training on how to survive a prison riot that Adam had largely disregarded when he’d first been captured.

            “Alright, don’t say another word.  He’s been listening in to our conversation.  He heard what you just told me and he wants to speak with you.  Adam, be very careful about what you say!  When you lowered your voice, one of the inmates with a weapon moved closer, trying to listen in.  So don’t say anything else that might give anything away, alright?”

            “Yes, sir.”  His heart was pounding.  With his back to the inmates, standing alone on the edge of the roof, Adam had no way to know what they were doing behind him.  He could have easily given Blake’s ruse away!

            “I love you, Adam,” his father was saying. “You hear me, son?  I know we’ve had our differences, but I have always loved you.  And whatever happens, I will never stop loving you.  Do you know that, Adam?”

            “Yes, sir.”  _I do now!_   Adam focused on his breathing to keep his emotions firmly in check.

            “Alright.  Here’s Daly.”

            Daly’s voice was calm and reassuring.  “Adam, this is Carson Daly.  From this point on, I want you to answer primarily with yes or no, or with as few words as possible.  Do you understand?”

            “Yes.”

            “You told your father that an inmate called Blake Shelton is helping you.  Is that true?”

            “Yes.”

            “And because of his assistance, no other inmate is touching you?”

            “Yes.”

            “Adam, you said he didn’t rape you.  Is he sexually assaulting you?”

            That was a hard question to answer, considering all Blake had done to him so far.  Adam frowned out at the barbed wire at the top of the prison fence and considered it. “Not really?”

            “Do you believe he intends to sexually assault you?”

            That was even harder.  “I don’t know.  Maybe?”

            “Adam, this is how this works.  Shelton apparently has some esteem and rank in that prison if he’s able to keep you for himself, especially given that you’re the warden’s son.  But you cannot trust him.  You know his crime, why he’s incarcerated there?”

            “Yes.”  How could Adam forget?

            “Shelton very nearly got away with it.  He’s got a very high intelligence, he can be superficially charming, and he’s manipulative, controlling.  You cannot let him get into your head!  Now it’s natural for you to feel some kind of gratitude or safety with him because he’s keeping you away from the general population, and that’s natural.  But you need to always keep something in mind.  You are a pawn, Adam.  If the other inmates let him have you, it’s because they believe Shelton can best control you and use you against your father.  And he will.  He may even be putting himself into a position where he appears to be an ally of your father’s, trying to get you to make amends with Warden Levine.  I’m told the relationship between the two of you is less than ideal?”

            “Yeah.”  Adam’s thoughts were racing.  Blake had been doing exactly what Daly had described!

            “He will use that, Adam.  He will use any bit of information he can, anything you tell him, anything he can learn.  Has he been watching the news?”

            “Yes.”

            Daly sighed.  “Not much we can do about that, but be aware that he’ll use what he learns there, as well.  When I saw the video and realized he probably had control of you, I studied his case file. Shelton will mix truth with lies until it’s next to impossible to tell where one ends and the other begins. He’s got an incredible memory for details.  Everything he can get his hands on, he will use to try to manipulate you, get you to do what he wants.  And his personality is such that he can easily get others to drop their guard and trust him.  No matter what he says or does, you have to bear in mind that it’s all an act, Adam. Shelton is a master of chess, and you are a pawn.  He’s going to use you to the fullest extent he can.  He’ll manipulate you to manipulate your father and the rest of us out here.  And he’ll manipulate you into letting him have whatever else he may want from you.”

            “I know.”  Adam squeezed his eyes shut.

            “Adam?”  Daly’s voice was soft now.  “Whatever he’s already done to you, whatever you may have even allowed?  Your primary goal is to survive this.  Whatever happens, you’re only trying to survive. And it doesn’t mean anything in regards to your sexuality, or your morality, or your duty, or anything else about you.  What happened in that prison, and whatever may happen in the future?  Anything you do, it’s to survive.  No matter what happens, you’ve got to keep that in mind. Do not let this break you.  Do you understand?”

            “Yes, sir.”  This had been part of Daly’s training, that hostages couldn’t be blamed, or blame themselves, for doing what they had to do in order to survive.  It was important to remember.  Adam was determined to keep it firmly in mind.

            “There’s an inmate coming up behind you now, Adam, so our time is over.  If you...”

            An arm went around Adam’s neck, pulling him back from the edge as the phone was snatched away.  “Time’s up!  You talked to him, now I expect we start to see some action out there.  Or the next time you see your kid, he’ll be bent over the edge of this roof where he was just standing, taking it up the ass from a long line of guys!  You got it?”

            The inmate didn’t wait for a response, hanging up and shoving Adam back towards Blake.  “Keep him away from the windows and doors, Big Country!  This bitch is our best bargaining chip and we can’t let him get hit by a stray bullet if we start fighting with those cops again.”

            Survival.  Do what you need to do to survive.  Adam forced himself to stay calm as Blake dragged him away, forcing him down the ladder. There was a moment, when Adam was at the base of the ladder and Blake was still coming down, that Adam could bolt, run down the halls before Blake could take hold of him again.  No.  There was no point in running.  There was nowhere he could go.  Adam waited, head down and arms crossed over his chest, for Blake to reach the bottom of the ladder.

            “Good move,” Blake noted, quickly cuffing Adam’s hands behind his back again.  “You’re learning.”

            “Yeah.”  _I’m learning, Blake.  I’m learning how you’ll manipulate me.  I’m on to you, you son of a bitch!_

            Survival.  He just had to survive this.  Nothing else mattered.


	8. The Leader of the Band

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Blake tells Adam his story

            “So you wanted to be a rock star?”

            The question was so out of the blue that it caught Adam off-guard.  He looked up, blinked, and then nodded.  “Yeah. My best friend Jesse and I had a band with a few guys.  We played some events and stuff, even made a record.  But it didn’t sell, dad told me to forget it and get back to my schoolwork, and that was pretty much the end of it.”  He eyed Blake.  “You know, Blake, you’ve got a beautiful voice.  Were you a singer?”

            “Kind of.”  Blake gave a wistful smile that somehow took years off of his age.  “I was a music teacher.  I taught music in my local high school and lead the band, the orchestra, and the chorus.  My biggest thing was the marching band.”

            “Oh.”  Adam drew his arms and legs in.  The handcuffs held his hands in front this time, providing him with something to stare at to avoid looking at Blake.  He wished the big inmate wasn’t sitting right next to him.

            “I get it,” Blake called, nudging him.  “You think that’s the perfect job for a child molester, right?  Jury agreed with you.  Must have. I’m here, right?”  He actually laughed, oblivious to the incredulous look Adam gave him.  “Ah, but that’s the thing.  There’s always two sides to every story.  Take you, for instance.  Those other guards, I’ve heard ‘em talking about you, Rockstar.  You keep to yourself.  You don’t talk to anyone, don’t go out with ‘em, don’t socialize on breaks.  You sit in the corner and you play on your phone.  Now, having gotten to know you a bit and see what you’re like?  I’m thinking that was because you just didn’t want to be here.  You didn’t want this job, didn’t want to stay, so you saw no reason to make friends or get to know any of your fellow guards.  Plus, you’re pretty much the rarest thing in this prison - an honest man. I’m thinking you saw all the bullshit that goes on in here on a day to day basis and decided you didn’t want anything to do with it.  So you kept to yourself.  But you know what the guards thought?  They thought you figured you were too good to hang out with them.  That you were only working as a CO because you needed a foothold, a way for your daddy to promote you to a desk job as soon as one opened up without pissing off the union.  They all know you went to college, so that made sense to ‘em.  And that’s what human nature’s like.  People have a tendency to see a few facts and jump to a conclusion.”

            Adam didn’t respond

            “Then you got someone like me,” Blake went on. “A piece of shit convicted of molesting and murdering a child.  When you find out I was a music teacher, well, naturally you attach some motive to that. You see a predator, stalking the halls of that school for a kid, finding one, and then murdering him to keep him quiet after I molested him.  Even though you’re an honest man and I don’t see you actively facilitating it, you might just be disgusted enough by that to be willing to look the other way when Roderick and his buddies came into my cell and attacked me.  And I don’t blame you, because there was a time I would have been right there with you.  Hell, I flat out said more than once that anyone sick enough to prey on a child like that deserves to get his ass raped in prison on a regular basis.  So when it was happening to me, what right did I have to complain?”

            “I’m sorry they raped you, Blake,” Adam managed. “What you did was horrible, but... No one deserves that.”

            “Perspective changes everything, doesn’t it?”

            “It’s not just that.”  Adam licked his lips.  “I never wanted to be here, but I do believe in our criminal justice system. You were tried and convicted, and you were sentenced and brought here.  You’re spending years of your life behind bars, safely locked away where you can’t hurt anyone, and that’s justice.  But for... anything else to happen to you?”  He shook his head.  “That isn’t justice.  And it isn’t right.  And I’m sorry it happened to you.”

            Blake went quiet for a moment.  “Thanks,” he said at last.  “That means a lot.  You’ll never know, honestly, how much that means.  Because Adam, there’s a part of me, a big part, that thinks I deserved every minute of it.  First time they came after me, hell, I barely even fought.  I’m a big guy, I was in the military, and maybe I could have fought them off right from the start.  But maybe didn’t fight as hard as I could have.  Maybe I let them overpower me, let them beat the shit out of me and force me down, do what they did to me because I understood why they did it.  And because I thought I had it coming.”

            Adam didn’t know what to say.  “You’re sorry for what you did, then?”

            “Nope.  Because I didn’t do what I was convicted of doing.  What I’m sorry for, and the reason I felt I deserved what happened to me, is for what I didn’t do.”  Blake’s voice had grown soft.  The blue eyes were troubled.

            “Well, now you’re obviously going to have to tell me the story,” Adam announced.

            “That so?”  Blake reached up with both hands to brush his greasy, shaggy hair back.  He snorted.  “It’s funny, what you do to survive.  I guess I let myself go like this, grew out my hair and my beard kind of like armor.  Like if I made myself look like a crazy mountain man, they’d leave me alone. Like it mattered what I’d looked like in the first place.  But Roderick, he used to tell me I was good-looking.  Liked my dimples, he said, and my eyes.  So I think that’s why I grew the beard, and let my hair hang in my face all the time.  Funny, how it makes sense when you look back.”

            Adam glanced over at Blake and was surprised to see the big man’s hands were shaking.  “Um, you don’t have to talk about this if you don’t want to?”

            “I want to,” Blake announced stubbornly. “You just gotta bear with me, Adam, and let me tell it in my own way.  Because I haven’t talked about this since my trial, and I’m trying to decide how to tell you.  Doesn’t feel right to start at the beginning.  You know how things ended.  So I guess I’ll start with you.”

            Adam blinked.  “Me?”

            Blake nodded.  “I heard you screaming, Adam, and then I didn’t hear you anymore.  So I knew you were in trouble.  Now, one thing I learned really quick in this hellhole is to keep my head down.  You see shit happening all the time, awful shit.  You’re hardly the first guy I saw getting raped.  Hell, just last week I saw a guy get killed!  So the question that comes to mind is, what was it about you that got me to stick my head up for the first time in years?  And I think it’s my hair and my beard.”

            Adam blinked again.

            Blake was stroking a hand down his beard. “It’s funny Roderick mentioned it, because until the morning of the riot, I hadn’t really paid one damned bit of attention to either one.  At least, I didn’t think I had.  That morning, I must have spent ten minutes just staring at my reflection, trying to find myself in it.  And you know, I couldn’t do it?  I stared and stared into my own eyes, and I just couldn’t see any of myself there. That bothered me.  I’d become someone else.  And I realized what I’d told you, that I’d grown out my hair and beard to hide my eyes and my dimples, because of what Roderick said to me.  But there was more to it than that.  I didn’t just bury my features, I buried my _self,_ Adam.  Because after they attacked me over and over, even though I still felt like I deserved it, I just flat-out couldn’t take it anymore.  And that was it.  That was the moment I stopped being me, started being someone else.  Big Country.  When I looked into the mirror that morning and saw Big Country looking back at me instead of Blake Shelton?  I realized just how far I’d fallen.  I had a certain amount of respect, some power, because I’d proven myself and because I stayed out of the prison drama.  But all I’d done this whole time was just survived.  I’d stayed alive, and for what?  I didn’t want to be Big Country anymore.  I wanted to find out if I could be Blake Shelton again. And that’s why I went to see what was going on when I heard you scream.”

            “Because it’s what Blake Shelton would have done?”

            “Without hesitation,” Blake confirmed.  “Then I came in, and I saw you.  I saw how helpless you were, how frightened.  Those hazel eyes of yours, Rockstar?  You got any idea how beautiful you really are? Ah, there I go again, shooting off my mouth,” he called when Adam shifted and looked away.  “But you really are beautiful, kid.  Even then, though, Big Country could have walked away, not gotten involved.  I sure as hell would have been safer for it, and probably could have slept just fine knowing I’d let you get gang raped.  But then you asked me for help.  The way you looked at me then, your eyes?  That’s what finally woke up Blake Shelton.  Because I’d seen those eyes before.”

            Blake went quiet again.  The blue eyes were unfocused, seeing deep into his memory.  Adam waited patiently.  He was thinking about what Carson had told him, about how Blake would manipulate him.  Blake was very obviously trying to play with Adam’s emotions here, implying that he’d been falsely accused and drawing this parallel between what had happened to him and what he’d prevented from happening to Adam.  It was, Adam had to admit, a damned good tactic.  Whatever Blake’s motivation, there was no question that Adam would have been gang raped, possibly killed if Blake hadn’t stepped in when he had.

            “The day they brought me into this place, I thought there was no way I could fall any farther,” Blake said.  “They march you in here, strip you naked and take a peek up your ass to make sure you ain’t smuggling something in up your exhaust. Then they give you one of these lovely uniforms, lock you in a cell, and that’s that.  My cell mate was this big fat bastard who eyed me, told me the top bunk was mine and he had first dibs on the toilet for his usual morning shit, and then rolled over and ignored me.  Only concession he made to the fact that I was even there was when he switched from the bottom bunk to the top after supper that first night.  I couldn’t figure it out.  Then the night came, and I was attacked for that first time, and I got it.  He’d been warned, told what was gonna happen to me.  And he went to the top bunk to stay away from it.  That whole time, he stayed up on that top bunk, right over top of me while those bastards did what they did to me.  And he never said a word about it.  To this day, he’s stayed in that top bunk, and he has never said a word about it.”

            “Thing is, I ain’t mad at him.  Like I told you, I don’t want revenge or anything like that. I don’t have anything against the bastards who came into my cell so long as they leave me alone now.  When you factor in the knowledge that I kind of feel I deserved it, I suppose it ain’t so hard to understand.  I forgive ‘em as much as I’m able.  I try to do that with everyone who’s wronged me.  Hatred, it just eats away at you, hollows you out inside. Makes you into something you’re not, until one day you’re looking in the mirror and seeing someone you don’t recognize. But back then, there was a lot of hate in my heart, Adam.  I was pissed at the judge for sentencing me, pissed at the jury for deciding I was guilty, royally pissed at that fucking snob of an ADA who prosecuted me more for the television cameras than the jury, and beyond pissed at my lawyer for pushing me to take a plea instead of working harder to clear my good name like I was paying him for.  During my trial, my anger and hatred hadn’t really had a chance to fester and turn inwards like it did by the time I was sentenced.  And before my sentencing, pretty much all of that anger and hatred was directed towards one woman - Jennifer Gable.”

            “Ex-wife?” Adam guessed.

            Blake shook his head.  “Jennifer Gable is the mother of Brandon Glover.  And Brandon Glover is the little boy I was convicted of molesting and murdering.  You remember I told you how I try to forgive everyone as much as I’m able?  Well Adam, to this day there’s two people I still haven’t quite been able to forgive.  One is myself.  And the other is Jennifer Gable.”

            “Oh.”  So Blake blamed the mother of his victim.  Well wasn’t that nice?  Adam fought to keep his face expressionless.

            Fortunately, Blake didn’t seem to notice.  “Working as a music teacher in a small town like River Valley is not exactly the road to riches,” he was saying.  “Most of us teachers took work on the side, especially in the summer.  Now I was limited even in the summer, because I was the band leader.  I directed the marching band, and summer time meant band camps.  I had two band camps, each running about a week long.  End of June, I taught my band marching and patriotic songs for the Fourth of July parade.  Then in August, we started learning our halftime show for the football games. Brandon was only twelve, still a couple years shy of being a high school freshman and joining the band.  But he loved it.  He loved the instruments and the music, he loved watching the kids march, he even loved the uniforms!  First and only kid I ever met who actually loved high school band uniforms, plumed hats and all.  And as long as he didn’t pester anyone, stayed quiet and just watched and listened, I had no problems with him hanging out with the high school kids. Especially since his mom didn’t seem to bother much with him.”

            “When I wasn’t leading the band, I gave music lessons.  Anyone, kid or adult, could pay me for private lessons.  I taught all the instruments in school, and did the choral ensemble.  But on my own, I only gave lessons in guitar and voice.  Brandon took both.  Twelve years old, but that kid was super talented, Adam.  He could play that guitar damned near as well as I could.  And his voice?  I found myself praying to God that puberty wouldn’t mess too much with his voice, because that kid had a set of pipes on him, Adam!  I arranged some concerts for my students, let ‘em show off. And every time, Brandon would steal the show.  That kid had one hell of a future going for him.  Except...”

            Blake abruptly went silent again.  Adam stayed quiet, letting him work through whatever it was on his mind.  And after a moment, his patience was rewarded when Blake began to speak again.  “Brandon would look at me, Adam.  Towards the end, at my last band camp before he died? Brandon would look at me when his mom came to pick him up.  And his eyes, they were this weird mixture of pleading and hopelessness.  It was like he wanted to ask me for something, but he wouldn’t because he was sure I’d say no.  And I’d ask him.  I’d say, ‘Hey, Brandon, what’s wrong, buddy?  Something on your mind?’  And he’d smile and laugh and go on his way.  I couldn’t puzzle out that look.  I never put it together.  Not until I saw that same look on your face the day we met, Adam.  The day you begged me to help you, and didn’t believe for one moment that I would.  Because Brandon wanted, desperately wanted, for me to help him.  And he was so convinced that I wouldn’t help him that he never even asked me.”

            “So here we are at Jennifer Gable.”  Blake leaned his head back and sighed.  “I’m pretty far from a vain man, Adam.  I’ve been told often enough that I’m good-looking. People have complemented my legs, my eyes, and my dimples well before Roderick did.  But I never could hold a candle to you, not even on my best day! I didn’t lack company when I wanted it, but I wasn’t the kind of guy that anyone went nuts over or bent over backwards to get the attention of.  So I didn’t get it.  I missed the glances, the not-so-accidental touches, the looks, the innuendo.  I never tried to hide the fact I was gay, but I didn’t advertise it and I didn’t have a boyfriend at the time, so most people didn’t know.  She sure as hell didn’t!  Jennifer took lessons from me too, vocal lessons.  Let’s just say that Brandon did not inherit his voice from Jennifer.  She wasn’t completely hopeless, but it was clear to me she didn’t have much of a future as a singer.  But she tried hard.  She worked like crazy, was always looking for advice and extra lessons to try to improve.  At least that’s what she told me.  And it’s what I was stupid enough, naive enough, to believe.”

            “She had a crush on you,” Adam guessed.

            “Bit more than that.  She was young, real young.  She’d had Brandon when she was still a teenager and had gotten married mostly because the guy had a stable job and could support a wife and child.  But the marriage didn’t last and she was divorced a little over a year before I met her.  She and Brandon had moved in with her sister and her brother-in-law, and their son, Dwayne.  Brandon talked about him all the time.  That kid worshipped his cousin, and I got to know Dwayne a bit because he’d hang out with Brandon quite a bit towards the end there.  But Jennifer, she was a fairly uninvolved mother, to put it politely. The most interest she ever took in Brandon was his music lessons and his relationship with me.  Now, in retrospect, it’s obvious what was going on. But, dumb country hick that I am, I was flat-out clueless.  Jennifer was doing everything she could short of doing naked cartwheels around me to try to get my attention, and all I saw was a fairly bad singer desperately hoping for help to improve.”

            “You’re an idiot, Blake.”

            “I know that now, jackass!  But I didn’t then.  And I didn’t figure it out until she was in my lap shoving her hand down my pants and her tongue in my mouth!  Then everything made too much sense, and I was pushing her off of me and yelling at her about how inappropriate that was and she was screaming at me that we were perfect for each other and I’d understand if I just gave her a chance. Then I dropped the gay bomb on her, and that went over like a ton of bricks.  She started screaming at me that I was just confused, I just needed to give her a chance, that sort of thing.  Then she went really nuts and screamed at me that she’d get me if it was the last thing she did, called me a Hellbound queer, and stormed out.  Good riddance to bad rubbish.  Even then, I still did not get just how unstable she really was.”

            “Brandon was...  He was different.  He was a good kid, but he was real quiet, jumpy.  After what happened with me and his mom, he got worse.  I did what I could.  That’s why he started hanging out with the band.  My band kids had a nickname for me then - Daddy Shelton. And you know, they were kind of right. Because Brandon never really had a daddy.  His own had nothing to do with him, so I think he looked to me to fill the role. And I’ll admit that I loved that kid. Would have loved it if he was actually mine.”

            That was creepy.  That should be creepy.  Adam wanted to feel creepy about it.  But something about the way Blake said it, it wasn’t creepy at all.  Hearing Blake talk about his victim should be making his stomach turn, but instead, the obvious affection in the big inmate’s voice and eyes stilled Adam’s tongue.  He wanted to hear the story.

            “His cousin, Dwayne, started hanging out a bit more with him.  Dwayne was hard to really read.  He obviously cared a lot about Brandon, but he was real cold towards me.  I always felt him watching me, and every time one of the kids called me Daddy Shelton, his eyes would get hard.  And they all called me Daddy Shelton by then, not one of the kids in my band called me Mr. Shelton anymore and no one thought anything about it.  Except Dwayne.  That’s where it started, I think.  And the day that Brandon disappeared, well, that must have been when Dwayne finally voiced his suspicions.  First time I found out about it was when the cops showed up at my house when I was getting ready to head in for the last day of August band camp.  That’s how I learned Brandon was missing.  Naturally, I offered to do all I could to help find him. The cops wanted to come and talk to some of the band kids, so I brought ‘em up to the school, opened up the band room, unlocked the instrument room and waited.  One of the cops was poking around, looked into the instrument room. And that’s where he was.  Brandon was dangling by his belt from one of the shelves where we stored the instruments.  There was a note at his feet.  It said, ‘Can’t take the pain anymore.  I love you, Daddy Shelton.’  And that was it.  Brandon was dead.”

            “I was shocked, but it didn’t take me long to figure out I shouldn’t have been.  The way he looked at me those last few days, he’d been begging me for help. But he never said a word.  And then Dwayne started talking, and Jennifer started making accusations, and next thing I know, I’m at the station talking to a detective.  Turns out, Dwayne had his suspicions about me for a while.  He’d realized something was wrong with Brandon, and he’d heard everyone calling me Daddy Shelton, and he’d jumped to the absolute wrong conclusion. Then they did an autopsy and found bruising around Brandon’s genitals, in various stages of healing.  Someone had been molesting that kid for a while. Then Jennifer got into it.  She started saying I’d been the one trying to put moves on her, and told anyone who’d listen that when she refused me, I’d gone after the next available target.  And she was insisting that Brandon would never kill himself.  It was like she’d never seen how that kid could climb trees like a monkey!  She swore up and down that a short little guy like Brandon never could have gotten his belt knotted up on that top shelf.  That would take someone tall.  She started accusing me of murder.”

            “And a couple days later, the cops did the same thing.  They picked me up, locked me in a cage and I went to trial.  Now at first, as you might imagine, I was in shock. Initially, I had a lot of support. My band kids were saying no, Daddy Shelton would never hurt that little boy.  But they’d all seen Jennifer and how much time we’d spent together, and Dwayne was saying that I was creepy close to Brandon and Brandon was showing signs. Dwayne had already suspected someone was at that kid.  And naturally, he looked at me.  But once the shock wore off, I started thinking.  I thought about how unstable Jennifer really was.  I remembered how she’d threatened me.  I saw her eyes at the trial, how she’d look at me, how angry she was.  It wasn’t the anger of a mother who’d lost a child, it was something else.  And that’s when I started to really think the unthinkable. Because Brandon had been sexually abused, Adam, but his autopsy showed no signs of any anal damage.  That meant either his abuser hadn’t gotten that far, or maybe the one who’d been abusing him didn’t have the right equipment?”

            “Holy shit!” Adam exclaimed.  “You think it was the mom?!”

            “Yeah,” Blake replied without hesitation.  “It explained so much, even why Brandon was spending so much time at the school away from home, and why he never talked about his mom and why he was so quiet and withdrawn.  I think it was her.  And I told my lawyer, but he wouldn’t present it at trial because there just wasn’t any evidence.  So I took the stand in my own defense and I told that jury everything.  I couldn’t prove it, but I believed it.  My lawyer wasn’t happy, but I’d seen the looks on the faces of those jurors.  I knew some of them were thinking real hard, taking another look at Jennifer.  When the jury went into deliberations, it took days. For three days, they argued back and forth while everyone held their breath.  And my lawyer finally admitted that I’d been amazing on the stand, that I seemed trustworthy and everyone could see I was torn up inside because I hadn’t done my damned job.  I was a teacher, Adam.  My job was to look after those kids, and just because Brandon wasn’t in my band, he was still right there with me.  I’d been trained, I knew the signs to look for.  If I had just pushed him, asked him even one more time if he was really alright, maybe he’d still be alive today, you know?  I’d have moved heaven and hell to help that little boy.  And instead, I was so focused on the band, on getting our halftime show together, that I missed what was right in front of me.”

            “And you know the rest,” Blake finished.  “You know that the jury finally came back with a guilty verdict. Later I heard through various sources that the one thing that finally swayed them was the fact that I’d admitted I was gay.  That little town, gay men still were considered dirty, perverted.  And that’s why they finally decided to believe that I’d molested that little boy and then hung him to keep him quiet, tried to make it look like a suicide.  The prosecutor had them convinced that Brandon’s note, even him saying he loved me, were the last acts of a terrified little boy trying desperately to appease a monster.  They convicted me of the sexual abuse and murder of a twelve-year-old little boy that I loved like my own son.  So I came here.  And the guards sicced Ricardo and the others on me for months, and I felt like I deserved it because I hadn’t done one damned thing to help Brandon.  Then I couldn’t take it anymore so I fought back, but I stayed hidden, grew out my hair and my beard until the day I looked in the mirror and realized what I was doing.  Then I heard you screaming, and that last part of me that was still Blake Shelton responded.  And you looked at me in exactly the same way Brandon had.”


	9. Who You Are

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Adam tries to puzzle out his feelings about Blake. Blake makes a desperate move when one of the prison gangs comes for Adam

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song Adam sings here is "Leader Of The Band" by Dan Fogelberg  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzpiwKNecHc

            Blake took Adam into the shower.  It caused Adam’s anxiety to ratchet into high gear, but Blake was a gentleman.  He asked Adam to take his arm out of one sleeve, handcuffed him to the rail, and then turned his back, giving Adam privacy to shower.  Adam was able to undress, quickly wash, dry, and dress in a clean prison uniform without Blake even once turning around.

            Blake took his time, seeming to enjoy the feel of the warm water on his skin.  And Adam didn’t feel guilty at all about watching him.  The big man stood under the spray, letting the water wash over his face and hair.  It tamed his hair and even settled down Blake’s beard.  That made him look young, very young, maybe even not much older than Adam himself.  He’d thought Blake was at least in his early 50’s.  Now, though, he thought that he’d overestimated Blake’s age by at least a couple of decades.  Beneath all the hair, Blake’s features were surprisingly symmetrical.  The big inmate might actually be good-looking!

            Adam swallowed, letting his eyes rove over Blake’s body.  The man had the longest legs Adam had ever seen, terminating in the deep V of his hips. He had a nice package, and a nicer ass. He also had decent muscle tone. There was an odd-looking tattoo on one of Blake’s forearms.  Adam would have to ask about it later.  It was the only tat Blake had.  Adam was covered with them.  It was interesting.  Based on that fact alone, one might think Adam was the convict and Blake the corrections officer.

            Adam thought again about what Blake had told him. What must that have been like for him, to come into that laundry room and see Adam with a belt around his neck half-strangled, after Brandon had hung himself with his belt?  And then he’d looked at Blake, not knowing that a little boy had once looked at him the same way...  But could Adam even trust Blake’s story?  Carson’s words were echoing through his head as he watched Blake rinse off. This man was manipulative.  He’d try to sway Adam to his side, and what better way to do that than to tell Adam a story like that?  Who was this man he was looking at now?  Was he Blake Shelton, the naive band leader who’d done what he had to do to survive in prison after being framed for a crime he didn’t commit?  Or was it Big Country, the manipulative convict who only wanted to use Adam for his own gain?

            _Can I believe him?_ Adam thought to himself as he watched Blake.  _Blake’s got every reason on Earth to lie to me.  That story he told me, he’s had plenty of time to make it up.  Not like I can check any of his facts from in here! But the way he told it?  The pain in his voice, his eyes!  Is he really innocent?  Or is he just playing me?_

            Adam didn’t know.  And the uncertainty was driving him mad.

            “You like what you see?”

            Adam startled out of his thoughts to see Blake grinning at him.  Without the hair hanging in them, Blake’s eyes were remarkably blue, like the summer sky. They twinkled in mischief as Blake dried off, not trying at all to hide his body from Adam’s gaze.  Adam blushed fiercely and looked away.  That brought a chuckle from Blake.

            Blake had just finished dressing when they heard shouting outside.  Looking concerned, Blake quickly uncuffed Adam from the rail, cuffing his hands behind his back and pulling him protectively close.  And a moment later, three men, one of whom was carrying a gun, came in.  “There you are!  Shelton, we’re taking Levine.”

            “Like hell you are!” Blake growled, wrapping his arms around Adam.

            The three exchanged an exasperated look. “Listen, Big Country, we don’t have time for this shit right now with you, alright?  The fucking Death Squad’s making a move, and if we don’t get Levine, they’ll take him for sure!”

            “Neither one of you is getting him.  Told you, he’s mine!”

            Gangs were nothing if not predictable.  Adam had thought it interesting that two different gangs had been working together when he’d been brought up to the roof to speak to his father.  He should have known it wouldn’t last.  It was inevitable that one gang would try to double-cross the other, make a play for power, even though the logical thing to do would be to work together towards a common goal.  No, gangs did not work that way.  Despite what they said to recruit members, at their hearts, gangs were selfish and short-sighted.  In the end, they always worked primarily towards short-term self-promotion.  And what better bargaining chip than the warden’s son?

            Adam knew he was in trouble.  But Blake obviously knew it, too.  The arms tightened around Adam as Blake stiffened. The inmates were moving closer, the one with the gun raising it.  “No games, dammit!  Give us Levine!  Now!”

            “Sorry,” Blake growled.  “But I don’t share my toys.  Not with you.  And not with anyone!”

            Blake had brought his arms up.  He slipped one behind Adam’s head, pressing forward with his forearm.  The other he bent at the elbow and tucked beneath Adam’s chin.  And Adam suddenly found himself being choked.  It wasn’t a show.  It wasn’t gentle.  Blake was choking him hard, cutting off his air so that he had to struggle for each breath. Alarmed, Adam tried to call his name, but all that came out was a harsh cough.

            The move got the attention of all three inmates immediately.  They froze, staring at Blake with wide eyes.  “Come on, Big Country, what the hell are you doing?  Don’t kill the son of a bitch, we need him!”

            “I told you.”  Blake’s voice was calm, steady, and absolutely determined.  “I don’t share my toys.  Only thing you’re taking from me is a body.”

            Adam couldn’t breathe.  He struggled, straining to get air.  What was Blake doing?  The big man never wavered, never loosened his grip.  He stood strong and steady behind Adam, largely shielded by Adam’s body from the gun the other inmate carried.  And he was strangling Adam!  Carson had been right.  Blake had only wanted to use Adam for his own ends and now he was going to kill Adam rather than give him up!

            The inmates were yelling.  Something about offering Blake another toy, threatening that if he killed the warden’s kid he was dead too, blah blah, Adam wasn’t listening. He could barely hear them over the roaring in his ears.  But the roar was fading.  Everything was fading.  Adam himself was fading.  He struggled desperately, but his struggles were growing weaker.  He leaned back hard against Blake, managing to croak out a strangled “Please!”  _Please let me breathe.  Please, Blake, it hurts, please stop choking me, let me breathe let me breathe you’re killing me please help me please please just let me breathe!!!_

            Adam felt his knees giving out.  Somehow, the pressure on his throat increased.  Dimly, he understood that he was now dangling, all of his weight on his throat.  And still, Blake wouldn’t let him go.  Blake was still speaking calmly.  Adam was dying in his arms, he was killing Adam and he didn’t care.  He heard other voices, growing distant.  But everything was growing distant now.  Sound.  Light. Consciousness faded.

            “Adam?  Come on, baby, please wake up!”

            Blake’s voice, swimming back down to Adam through the darkness.  Blake Shelton.  Big Country. Which was the real Blake?

            “I’m so sorry, Adam!  I’m sorry I choked you, but I couldn’t let them take you!  If they took you from me now, you’d become a pawn in their stupid turf war.  They would have ended up killing you!  I had to do something, had to stop them from taking you.  Maybe I shouldn’t have choked you so hard, but it had to be real. They had to believe I’d really kill you. Fuck me, I almost killed you for real, didn’t I?  Please, just open your eyes!  I’m sorry, baby, you have to believe me!”

            “I b’lieve you.”

            “Adam!”  The relief was palpable in Blake’s voice.  Adam felt himself gathered against Blake’s chest.

            “B’lieve you, Blake.  You...  You’re Blake. Not Big Country.”

            “What?”  Now Blake sounded confused.

            Adam wasn’t yet awake.  The novelty of being able to breathe was still too new.  His oxygen-starved brain was drinking it in now. Its upper functions still weren’t functioning.  Only Adam’s base emotions were in full working order now.  “You’ll protect me,” Adam mumbled.  “M’ safe with you.  Brandon, he wa’t your fault.  You’ll take care a me.”

            Silence.  Adam’s head finally cleared and he blinked his eyes open.  Blake was staring down at him in astonishment.  Adam frowned.  “Why are you holding me?  Let me go!”

            Blake blinked.  He carefully helped Adam sit up, letting go once the smaller man had his balance.  “Hey, Adam?” he called.  “You remember what you just said to me?”

            “For you to let me go?”

            “No.  Before that, right before you opened your eyes?”

            Adam frowned.  “I said something before I opened my eyes?”

            “Yeah.”  Blake licked his lips.  “You said you believed me.  And that Brandon, he wasn’t my fault.”

            Adam quickly looked away.  “I don’t remember saying that.”

            “Oh.”  Blake took a breath.  “Do you? Believe me?”

            “I don’t know, Blake,” Adam sighed.  “But I do believe that Brandon wasn’t your fault. If it really happened the way you said it did?  Then you tried to reach that kid.  It’s not your fault he chose not to talk to you.  And you couldn’t have stopped what happened to him, Blake.  If his mom was molesting him, and he wouldn’t tell anyone? Then there wasn’t anything you could have done.  It’s not your fault.”

            Blake was looking at him strangely.  There was an odd sort of glow to his eyes as he looked at Adam, giving his hairy face a bit of softness, a gentleness that belied the convict who’d just choked him half to death a moment ago.

            Right.  Adam twisted his neck, wincing at the tenderness there.  “I’m sorry, Adam,” Blake said humbly.  “I had to make it real or they would have eventually shot me and stolen you.”

            “Well, it was definitely real!” Adam grumbled. “You choked the shit out of me!”

            “I know,” Blake admitted, miserable.  “And I had to keep choking you for so long!  I couldn’t let you go, not even when I realized you’d passed out and you were literally hanging from my arms!  I knew you were unconscious, but I had to wait until they left.  They moved so damned slow, Rockstar, and I knew you couldn’t breathe!  Then I carried you in here, but I couldn’t get you to wake up. For a moment there, I really thought...” Blake swallowed hard.  He gingerly reached towards Adam, but drew his hand back. “I’m sorry.”

            “I get why you did it,” Adam sighed.  “Just please, for the love of God, don’t do it again!”

            “They’re getting more insistent about taking you, Adam,” Blake warned.  “I don’t know how much longer I can keep you safe.  Especially now.”

            “Now?  What’s...” Adam trailed off, finally hearing the sound of shouting and gunfire from beyond the door.

            “Gang war,” Blake sighed.  “All the bangers are at it, trying to knock each other off to make the prison their own personal hood.”  He shook his head in disgust.  “We’re failing our kids, Adam!  For them to see a life like that and think it’s one they want to be a part of? We’ve failed them in some way!”

            “Now you sound like a teacher!”

            That brought a sad smile to Blake’s face.  “I loved being a teacher, Adam.  But the band?  That was the best part.  I still think of them sometimes.  The band kids?  They all had to have heard about what happened.  I wonder if any of them believe in me now?  It’s been five years since I came here.  By now, even the freshmen have graduated!  The kids in that band, I won’t know any of ‘em.  And Brandon, he would have been in the band by now.”

            There it was again.  That sudden pain Adam had noticed when Blake told him Brandon’s story. If Blake was acting, the man deserved an academy award.  “I think they knew the kind of man you were, Blake,” Adam offered.  “Especially the older ones, who’d been with you for a few years.”

            Blake cocked an eyebrow at him.  “You think so?” he drawled, combing his wild long hair back out of his eyes.

            Adam smiled.  _“The Leader of the Band is tired, and his eyes are growing old,”_ he sang.  _“But his blood runs through my instrument, and his song is in my soul!  My life has been a poor attempt to imitate the man.  I’m just a living legacy to the leader of the band!”_

            Blake was giving him that look again.  “Your voice is as beautiful as you are!”

            “Why do you keep doing that?”

            “Doing what?”

            “Calling me beautiful?”

            “Because you are!  Holy shit, Adam, how can you not know that?”  His hand came up, brushing the backs of his knuckles against Adam’s cheek.  “You’ve got to be the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen in all my life!  And I know, alright?  I know someone like me doesn’t deserve to even breathe the same air as you! Even if I was outside and leading the band again, you’d never look at me.  But I would have hoped, if we’d met on the outside?  That you and I could at least be friends.”

            Adam looked at him.  His heart was pounding.  Back in their training, Carson had warned them that intense situations like prison riots or hostage situations often resulted in unusually strong emotions. Adam didn’t know what he was feeling now.  Did he believe Blake?  He still didn’t know.  But he knew he wanted to.

            Adam tore his gaze away, looking around.  He blinked as he recognized the room they were in, and then blinked again when he saw that every window, inside and out, had been covered with what appeared to be sheets.  “No one can see in,” he noted.  “Let me go, Blake?”

            Blake undid his handcuffs.  Adam rubbed at his wrists, looking around.  Then he stood up.  He and Blake dragged some heavy objects in front of the door, barricading it. It wouldn’t hold long, but at least it would give them a bit of a head start if they were attacked.

            Now Adam looked around a bit more, poking in the supplies.  He gathered a few, set them on the counter.  Then he turned to Blake.

            The inmate had been standing where he was, watching Adam in amusement with his head cocked to one side and his arms crossed. “Thinking of taking up a new career?” he called.

            Adam indicated the chair.  “You’re the one who brought us to the barber shop!  And God knows you need a haircut.  You look like a bush, Blake.”

            “Working as intended.”  The big hillbilly ambled over, though, and climbed into Adam’s barber chair.  “Shave and a haircut, two bits!”

            “Yeah, that’s exactly what I intend to do to you.”

            “Seriously?”  Blake was smiling, but he looked confused as he watched Adam pick up a scissors. “Does my hair and beard really bother you that much?”

            “Not really, no,” Adam explained as he gathered up the worst mess of Blake’s beard.  “It’s just what you said.  You said you grew out your hair and beard to hide your eyes and dimples, because of what Roderick said?  But I don’t think that’s true.  Because you’re right, it doesn’t make sense because they didn’t rape you because of how you looked.  I think, what happened to you here, the things you had to do to survive?  You were trying to hide yourself, to protect who you really are.”  He opened the scissors, preparing to cut, but paused.  Blake had gone still and silent.  “Blake, you don’t have to hide from me,” he encouraged.  “I want to see who you really are, under all this.  Will you let me?”

            “Alright.”  Blake’s voice was small and soft.  But the blue eyes that looked up at Adam were full of trust.


	10. Broken

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Adam plays barber, and discovers a whole new side of Blake

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Diegetic song, and main theme for this piece, is "Broken" by Lifehouse  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZgdbHB1ZRuQ

            The scissors were very sharp.  Little wonder they were carefully engraved and counted and not allowed to leave the barber shop.  They hacked through Blake’s beard with ease.  The tangled snarls soon littered the floor and the towels Adam had used to cover Blake’s shoulders, chest, and back.  It didn’t appear as if Blake had ever combed it out.  Adam hacked brutally through it, and already Blake looked like a new man.  Blake had a lot of grey, but now that more of his face was visible, Adam could see that Blake really was much younger than he’d first thought.

            Blake didn’t move or say a word.  His eyes watched Adam quietly as Adam worked, using the scissors to trim his beard as close as he dared.  Naturally, the razors had all been stolen during the initial rioting. Adam snagged the beard trimmers and buzzed Blake.  Now Blake appeared to have a bad case of scruff.  But Adam wasn’t finished.  He put the trimmers down to their lowest setting and carefully worked at Blake’s face. He knew how slow he was moving. He couldn’t imagine what Blake thought. But it didn’t matter.  He’d already cut away enough of Blake’s beard that he’d seen what was under it.  And what was under it was a work of art.  Adam’s hands moved over Blake’s face with reverence, making sure his beard was perfectly trimmed down to a short stubble.  “Wow.”

            Blake cocked an eyebrow, giving Adam a confused look. But he didn’t say anything.

            Adam considered Blake’s hair.  Then he pulled Blake up and brought him to the shampooing sink.  “I just washed my hair!” Blake complained when Adam pushed him down.

            “I know.  But you used that shitty body wash.”

            “Same thing I used for the last five years.”

            “Yeah, it shows.  Shut up.  This is my show and I’m doing it right.”

            Blake shrugged and let Adam push him back. Adam manned the sprayer, spraying it into the other sink as he adjusted the temperature before directing it onto Blake’s head.  Blake twitched when the water hit him, but then he smiled.  Relaxing, he closed his eyes, tilted his head back, and let Adam tend to him.  The immediate trust made something well up inside of Adam’s chest.  He swallowed it back down and focused on his work.

            Adam worked the shampoo through Blake’s long hair. It didn’t seem to have benefitted any more from a comb than his beard had.  Adam’s fingers combed through the greying locks.  He generously used the conditioner, working with his fingers. Finally he had to resort to grabbing the scissors to cut off the worst of the matting.

            Blake never responded.  He lay as he was with his eyes closed, trusting Adam to do whatever he wished.  His lips were curled in a small smile.  Adam massaged at Blake’s scalp, his eyes on those lips.  _Don’t do it, Levine,_ he ordered himself.  _Yeah, he’s starting to look really good, but remember, in a situation like this, emotions are intense.  Do not kiss him!_

            Noise outside.  It was down the hall some distance, but it sounded bad.  Voices raised in anger, screams, the sound of shattering glass.  Blake’s blue eyes opened, looking troubled.  No, that would never do.  Adam liked Blake relaxed and smiling.  He quickly moved away, going to the radio set up in the barber shop, and turned it on. There.  Now the sound of violence outside was drowned out largely by the music, and Blake relaxed again.

            Now that the matting was gone, Adam could finally get his fingers through Blake’s hair.  The extra care had made it silky soft.  He smiled.  Blake’s hair looked like, well, like someone had hacked at it with a scissors.  But it was like brushing his fingers through silk. Adam gathered it up and wrung out water. Then he attacked it with a towel. “Ok, sit up and back to the chair!”

            “Yessir!”  The big inmate loomed over Adam, which took the towel almost out of his reach.  But Blake was rubbing at his head with the towel now, and by the time he’d climbed back into the barber chair, his hair was once again an unruly mess.  At least it was drier.  Blake tossed the towel aside and settled in, relaxing.

            Adam finger combed through the locks, making clicking sounds of disapproval with his tongue.  “This is impossible.  I’m gonna have to hack it all off now, Blake.  Shave you bald.”

            “Cool!” Blake called cheerfully.  “Then I can get a gold hoop earring and apply for a job as Mr. Clean.”

            Adam laughed.  “You’re such an idiot!  You know, most people would be a bit worried about some guy who’d never cut someone else’s hair standing behind them with a scissors.”

            “Ok, let me make a prediction about how my hair’s gonna turn out.”  Blake put on a serious expression and rubbed at his temples.  “Ooooom diddy diddy um diddy aiii!” he intoned.  “The cosmic powers are filling my brain, bringing with them visions of the future.  I see...” He gave a dramatic scream. “Noooo, I see you giving me your stupid haircut!  No, please, anything but that!”

            Adam laughed so hard he had to clutch the counter for support at Blake’s antics, but scowled when Blake got to that point. “Fuck you, Shelton!  You know what, just lean back and shut up.”

            “Hey jackass, I’d just like to remind you that I’m much larger and stronger than you are, I have in my possession a pair of handcuffs, and I recently damned near killed you?”

            “And to that, I will counter with the indisputable fact that I am the guy with the scissors.”  Adam clicked his scissors rapidly together.

            Blake nodded solemnly.  “You win.”

            “Of course I did.  Now lie back and shut up.”

            Blake obeyed.

            At least Blake’s hair was easy to comb through now.  At first, Adam hacked recklessly, chopping off the long curling locks.  The floor was soon littered with them.  Adam kept working, glancing down at Blake’s face as he did.  The sense of humor had been unexpected, but it seemed so natural that Adam suspected it had been there all along.  It was strange.  In a very real way, it seemed like the more of Blake’s outer shell of matted hair Adam cut away, the more the real Blake shone through.  And the real Blake, the man Adam was finally starting to see, was warm, funny, genuine, and surprisingly vulnerable.  Adam hadn’t missed the way the blue eyes flashed to him when Blake had reminded Adam of what he’d done.  It was a reminder Adam hadn’t needed, not with the dull ache in his throat.  But in its own way, that was another way of Blake apologizing for what he’d done, for asking Adam for forgiveness.  Then when Adam had joked back, Blake’s blue eyes had softened, finding the forgiveness he’d sought.

            Adam was moving slower now, taking care as he trimmed Blake’s hair.  Once again, he was seeing another man emerging as Big Country fell away.  And the man he was seeing was beautiful. Adam picked up the trimmers and carefully cut.  “Hey Blake?” he called as he worked. 

            The blue eyes opened, looking up at Adam.

            “Whatever happens in here, I want you to know that you saved me, alright?” Adam told him.  “You did everything you could to protect me, keep me safe.”

            “Even damned near kill you.”

            “Yeah.”  Adam maneuvered the clippers over Blake’s temples.  “I don’t know if it means anything to you, but what you did for me here? Maybe, to you, it doesn’t make up for the guilt you feel over Brandon.  But I’ll never forget it.  If I get out of here...”

            “You’re getting out of here!”

            “When I get out of here,” Adam corrected softly, “I won’t forget you.  The real you, the one you showed me.  Thank you for that.”

            Those eyes.  They seemed to look straight into him, boring into his soul.  Blake’s hand moved up, cupped Adam’s head.  “You’re welcome.”

            Was there pressure, maybe just a little, on the back of Adam’s head, drawing his head down?  Or was it just Adam lowering his head, pressing his lips to Blake’s forehead, kissing the man who’d choked him, beaten him, assaulted him... and saved him?

            More sounds of violence out in the halls. What was very clearly a gunshot rang out, followed by screams and curses.  Neither man paid any attention.  Adam stayed as he was, leaning down over Blake as Blake looked up at him, seeing each other upside-down.  The radio tried gallantly to drown out the noise, moving into another song.  Adam smiled, recognizing “Broken” by Lifehouse.

            “ _The broken clock is a comfort,”_ he sang.  _“It helps me sleep tonight. Maybe it can stop tomorrow from stealing all my time?  And I am here still waiting, though I still have my doubts.  I am damaged at best, like you've already figured out.”_

            Blake was looking hard at him now, his gaze intense as Adam put his clippers away and pulled off the towels, careful not to let the loose hair fall onto Blake’s clothing.  He brushed his fingers over Blake’s hair, settling the new short locks as he sang.  _“I'm falling apart.  I'm barely breathing.  With a broken heart that's still beating.  In the pain there is healing.  In your name, I find meaning.”_  

            Blake reached up, caught Adam’s hands, and Adam’s voice died in his throat.  Blake’s eyes were locked with Adams as he picked up on the next verse.  _“The broken locks were a warning.  You got inside my head!  I tried my best to be guarded, and I'm an open book instead.  And I still see your reflection inside my eyes that are looking for purpose, they’re still looking for life.”_

            _“I'm falling apart,”_ he continued as he gently pulled Adam round the chair.  _“I'm barely breathing!  With a broken heart that's still beating.”_

            And now Adam joined him, chiming in on the echo.  _“In the pain is there healing?  In your name I find meaning!”_

            More screams, a bit closer now.  Adam was in front of Blake as the big man rose, looming over Adam and putting his hands on Adam’s shoulders.  Their eyes were still locked together.  Adam’s hands moved to Blake’s waist and then they were dancing, gently rocking back and forth as they moved into the chorus.  _“So I'm holding on, I’m still holding! I'm holding on, I’m still holding. I'm holding on, I'm still holding, I'm barely holding on to you!”_

            Adam leaned forward, letting his head rest against Blake, tucked in under Blake’s chin.  He wrapped his arms around the larger man.  Blake’s hands slid around him, keeping Adam pulled up against him as their voices rang out, drowning out the noise outside.  _“I’m hanging on another day just to see what you will throw my way!  But I'm hanging on to the words you say.  You said that I will, will be OK!”_

            Adam wasn’t sure how it happened, or which of them had initiated it.  But he stopped singing because his lips were pressed against Blake’s.  The kiss wasn’t tentative or shy.  There was no hesitation.  Adam surprised himself with how fiercely he was kissing Blake, how tightly he gripped the larger man.  He shoved Blake backwards until Blake fell with a small grunt of surprise back into the chair.  And then Adam was on top of him.  His hands clung to Blake’s short locks.  Cutting off Blake’s beard and hair had revealed a very attractive man in his early thirties.  Blake’s blue eyes shone with kindness and humor.  His laugh as Adam attacked him brought out dimples that were driving Adam wild.  He kissed Blake again, the nearly forgotten radio still playing the end of the song.

            _“Broken lights on the freeway left me here alone.  I may have lost my way now, haven't forgotten my way home.”_

            Here, locked inside the prison, surrounded by violence and death and terror, Blake felt like home.

            Blake’s uniform was stubborn.  Adam was having trouble getting it off, and it was irritating the hell out of him.  He growled as he tugged on it until Blake laughed again and assisted.  His own uniform was far more cooperative.  Now they were both naked.  Adam attacked the body under him, touching and kissing and sucking everywhere.  Blake wanted him.  That was obvious.  Blake’s erection was pressing against Adam’s ass as he pressed himself against Blake’s chest, kissing him fiercely.  “You sure you want this, Rockstar?” Blake asked against his mouth.

            Adam ground down against Blake’s abdomen, drawing a moan from the larger man.  “That answer your question?”

            He went after Blake’s mouth again, but for some reason the inmate was pushing him back, holding him away.  “Adam, you need to stop and think about this,” Blake warned. “I’m an inmate, remember?”

            Adam whined in frustration.  “You didn’t fucking do anything!”

            “I did in the eyes of the law.  I’ve been convicted, and I’m a prisoner here.  And you’re a guard.  This is going to sound stupid, especially considering what everyone thinks I’ve been doing to you, but if you make love to me now?  It’s considered rape, Adam.”

            That made Adam pause for a moment.  The irony of that, that if he willingly did what the two of them had been tricking others into believing had been happening all along, he’d actually be guilty of raping Blake, was so absurd he almost laughed. But at the same time, there was nothing funny about it.

            Then Adam looked down at Blake, lying there looking up at him, and quickly decided he didn’t care.  “I get it, ok?  I know that it’s illegal for a guard to have sex with an inmate.  I know that this makes things between us really fucking complicated on damned near every level known to man.  I get that what I’m feeling is way overblown because of the danger we’re in here.  And I get that if I do this right now, if I take this step, then there’s no coming back from it.  And right now, I just do not care!  I need you, Blake.  Please!”

            “Then grab some of that conditioner.”

            The order made Adam blink in confusion. “Oh.  Oh!  Right!” Adam hopped off, grabbed the pump bottle of conditioner, and brought it over.  Then he reclined Blake’s chair back as far as it could go.

            Blake wasted no time.  He grabbed the bottle and lubed up his fingers with conditioner. “Come up here.”

            Adam eagerly climbed up Blake’s chest.  Blake helped him by taking Adam’s hip with one hand, drawing him towards his mouth while his lubed fingers moved back.  It was incredible.  Adam was no virgin, having made love to both men and women in his time.  But Blake was skilled.  His tongue licked just right, his cheeks hollowed.  He drew Adam impossibly deep, raising his head as he pulled on Adam’s hip.  Adam moaned, thrusting his hips.  Blake’s fingers pressed gently into him, guiding his movements as Blake opened him.  Adam was perfectly relaxed.  Two fingers became three and then four, and Adam was panting, struggling to hold back. “Dammit, Blake, if you don’t get inside of me soon...!”

            Blake’s hips seized Adam’s hips, dragged him down. Adam hissed at the burn as Blake pushed him down onto his erection, panting again until his body adjusted to Blake’s girth. “Oh, Blake!”

            “You take your time, baby,” Blake soothed. “Your pace.  I’ve controlled you enough.  This time, you move when you’re ready.”

            The gesture was as powerful as it was simple. For the first time since the riot began, Adam was finally being given control.  He began to move, throwing back his head as Blake moaned.  Adam worked out every day.  His muscles were strong.  Those in his thighs bunched, rising him easily to slide up, only to lower himself back down again, fully encompassing Blake.  Blake swore, and Adam smiled.  “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I’m glad there’s still a little of Big Country left in you.”

            “Always was there,” Blake grunted.  “Oh, Rockstar, you feel so damned good!”

            Another gunshot outside, more screaming.  Adam ignored it, focused on the expression on Blake’s face, the way his eyes never looked away from his own, the way the big hands clutched so hard at his hips.  He’d have bruises.  He didn’t care.  He rode his lover, shifting his hips slightly so that Blake was hitting his prostate just right.  “I’m not gonna last!”

            “Don’t worry, I ain’t either!”

            That was encouraging.  Adam kept moving, cursing savagely, making Blake chuckle at his creativity.  And suddenly he went over the edge, his release splashing against his and Blake’s abdomens.

            Blake gave a desperate cry.  To Adam’s surprise he suddenly bucked upwards, pulling hard on Adam’s hips at the same time and completely unsheathing himself.  Adam blinked, and then startled as he felt the unmistakable sensation of Blake’s spend hitting one of his calves. “Blake?”

            “They were at me, Adam,” Blake moaned, panting. “They had me for months!  I’ve been treated for STDs, tested, but I couldn’t be sure.  I shouldn’t have done even that much without protection.  I won’t risk you any more than I already did.”

            Adam froze.  He hadn’t even thought of that, of what Blake had been exposed to from his ordeal here.  The idea that Blake could be anything but clean hadn’t even crossed his mind.  But Blake was right.  Of course Blake was right.  And this final consideration for Adam erased whatever doubts might have been lingering in Adam’s mind.  He leaned forward, kissing Blake.  “I believe you, Blake,” he said.  “And we’ve got to get you out of here, clear your name!”

            Blake only smiled.  “You do that, Rockstar.”

            “I will!  I’ll petition to have another look at your original case, I’ll hire a private detective, I’ll do whatever I have to do.  But I swear I won’t leave you in here, Blake.  I’m going to get you out!”

            “First, why don’t you let me worry about getting you out?”

            The reminder of his situation sobered Adam. He lay on his lover’s chest, his eyes on the sheet-covered windows.  What was happening out there?  More importantly, when it ended, what would happen to him?

            Then he realized something.  “Blake, they think you’re willing to kill me now, rather than give me up.”

            “Yeah.”

            “But I’m still a high value hostage!”

            “Yup.”

            “So what does that mean for you?”  Adam rose up a bit on his hands, looking down at Blake. “The next time they decide to take me, what are they going to do to you, to make sure you won’t break my neck?”

            Blake didn’t answer.  His arms went around Adam, pulling the smaller man against his chest.  “How about we just rest a bit, get ourselves cleaned up, and cross that bridge when we come to it?”

            Blake hadn’t answered him.  Adam forced himself to relax, even though he knew full well that Blake hadn’t answered because he had no answer to give.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You're welcome.


	11. Sacrifice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Desperate times call for desperate measures

            Blake was worried.  He smiled every time he saw Adam look at him, but by now, Adam knew him well enough to know the signs.  He hadn’t missed the way Blake roamed through the barber shop, picking up this or that before settling on a hair dryer.  Now he carried the hair dryer with him.  It seemed obvious that Blake was looking at it as a club.  Blake had made other preparations as well.  He’d further barricaded the door, done what he could to impede the progress of anyone trying to get in as much as he could.  And he’d already instructed Adam to keep the scissors hidden away in the top of his sock.  Blake was keyed up, paying close attention to the violence outside.  It was much closer now, and coming ever closer. Eventually, Blake and Adam would be found.  They both knew what would happen then.  The inmates would want Adam.  They’d come seeking the warden’s son.  They’d expect that Blake would rather kill Adam than give him up.  And they’d be ready to act to take Adam anyway.  But Blake, Adam knew, had no intention of giving him up.  Blake had already risked so much, and now he was risking even more.

            Blake was gearing up for war.

            Adam had found another hair dryer and was testing its weight.  A bit of tape on the side of it labeled it as “Broken.”  That needed no written label.  The cord of the hair dryer had been badly strained and frayed.  Adam didn’t want to think about what, exactly, might have caused that to happen.  At any rate, the fact that it was non-functioning really didn’t make much of a difference right now.  It wasn’t as though Adam planned to use it to dry his hair.  Now, it was a weapon.  Even in its new repurposed state, the hair dryer was of poor value.  When it came to a weapon, Adam would have preferred something heavy and metal.  This thing was mostly plastic.  Still, it was solid.  With enough force behind it, it should serve its purpose.

            “When they come, I want you to stay back down behind the chair, under the counter,” Blake was instructing.  His blue eyes were on the covered windows, hearing the shouting from just down the hall.  “I can’t imagine what I’d do in your position, but it might be better if you don’t fight.”

            “You think I should just let them take me?”

            “Maybe.”  Blake flinched in time with Adam as the sound of shattering glass echoed through the halls. “Those are some extremely violent men out there, Rockstar.  They’re already having a hell of a day if they’re in the middle of a gang war.  If you piss them off too much, they won’t hesitate to hurt you.”

            “Yeah.”  Adam swallowed.  “Think they’ll kill me?”

            “No,” Blake said a little too quickly.  “You’re way too big of a bargaining chip for that! They need you alive, and capable of talking to your daddy.  They won’t kill you.”

            “But they will hurt me.”

            Blake didn’t respond right away.  When he did, his voice was soft.  “I’ll do whatever I can.  But Adam, I don’t know how I’m gonna stop ‘em from taking you this time.”

            “I know.”  Adam was surprised at how steady his voice was.  “It’s alright.  I knew this was going to happen, and that’s why...  It’s part of why I did what I did.  You and me.”

            The blue eyes glanced back at him.  “Part of it?”

            “The bigger part was just you.”  Adam slipped his hand into Blake’s, lacing his fingers through the larger man’s.  “I think, if we’d met on the outside?  We might have had something!”

            Blake snorted.  “You never would have looked twice at me!”

            “Blake, you’re an idiot, and you’re blind. You’re a beautiful man!”

            That earned him a surprised blink, and a shy smile. “Now I know you’re an idiot!”

            “You’re stupid, and everything about you is stupid!” Adam grumbled.  “You don’t even know how beautiful you are!  It’s ridiculous, Blake.”  He moved around to the front of Blake, pulling the inmate’s head down for a kiss. “Just know that whatever happens now? I’m glad it happened, that I got to have you for a little while.  It was good, what we had between us.  And it’s going to keep me going through the rest of this.”

            “Yeah, me, too.”  Blake’s voice was husky.  The big hands cupped Adam’s head, pulling him into the kiss.

            Adam let him.  He slipped his arms around Blake, pressed against him, and sighed contentedly.  “Why can’t we just stay like this?” he whispered.

            Adam’s answer was loud shouting in the hall.

            Blake immediately stiffened, pushing Adam back behind him.  “Go, Rockstar, get back behind the chair!” he ordered.  “And don’t do anything stupid!”

            “Why?  What are you going to do?”

            “Whatever I can.”

            “Let’s talk about doing something stupid!”

            Blake looked back and smiled softly at Adam. “You don’t belong here, kid.”

            “Neither do you!”

            “Yeah, I do.  Maybe I didn’t commit the crime, but I got sentenced here and that’s that. Everything I’ve done from that point on has pretty much led me to this moment.  And I’m fine with that, because that was mostly the choices I made that brought me here.  But you? Adam, you didn’t deserve any of this! You walked in here to try to please your daddy, and that was damned wrong of him to push you into it.  Because you do not belong in a place like this.  You’ve got too good of a heart, Adam!  And even more than your looks, that’s the reason I’m attracted to you.  That heart of gold you got.  So I want you to make me a promise now.  No matter what happens now, I want you to promise me you’ll hold onto that heart. Whatever these fuckers might do to your body, they can’t touch your heart unless you let them!”

            Adam picked up his hair dryer.  His heart was pounding.  “What do you think they’ll do to me?”

            “I don’t know, kid.”

            “Stop calling me kid, I’m not that much younger than you are!”

            “But you’re innocent.  What I went through here, I’ll never be innocent again.”

            Adam shuddered.  “By the time they’re done with me, I won’t be, either!”

            Blake grimaced.  “Adam, you gotta trust your daddy, alright?  He’s doing everything he can to get you out of this.  These assholes in the hall are gonna take you, probably rough you up a little.  But they got bigger things on their minds right now than raping you, alright?  First and foremost, you’re the warden’s kid. They’re all going to want control of you, and they’re going to fight like hell to keep you.  But even though it’s going to be hard and scary as hell, that’s to your advantage.  Because it means they’re going to be too busy fighting each other to keep control of you to do much to ya!  Long as this shit ends soon, you should be fairly safe from the worst of what they can do to you.  And your daddy will get you out of here.  You just gotta hang on until he does!  Meanwhile, you keep that heart of yours, Adam.  Don’t let this place, or whatever happens here, burn the heart out of you. Will you promise me that?”

            Adam closed his eyes and tightened his grip on the hair dryer.  “Yeah. I promise Blake.”

            Blake squeezed his shoulder.  Then he picked up his own hair dryer and turned, bracing, to face the door.

            Adam swung with all his strength, bringing his broken hair dryer against Blake’s head so hard the plastic case cracked. Blake didn’t make a sound.  He didn’t react.  He just swayed a bit, and Adam raised the hair dryer for another blow. Then the big man’s knees buckled, dropping him heavily to the ground.

            For a moment, Adam could only stare, shaking. Blake’s head was starting to bleed. More blood covered the hair dryer. Blood had splashed onto Adam’s hand. He let the broken hair dryer fall from his nerveless hands and dropped to his knees beside Blake.  “Blake!” he called, frantically checking for a pulse. “Please don’t be dead?”

            Blake had a pulse.  He was breathing.  He was definitely unconscious, but he was still alive.  Adam breathed a sigh of relief and said a quick prayer of thanks. Then he was up, grabbing Blake’s wrists and dragging him back towards the chair.

            It took some doing.  Blake was a big man, and now he was dead weight.  His body was limp as Adam dragged him.  Adam’s hands shook as he quickly snapped the handcuffs around Blake’s wrists, locking the inmate’s hands around the base of the chair. There.  He’d done it.  Now even when Blake came back around, he’d be trapped here.  Now was Adam’s chance!

            Adam quickly dismantled the barricade enough that he could slip out the door.  He moved to the window and peeked out.  Peering around the corner, he could see the inmates down the hall.  A small group of them had their backs to him, shouting at a few others.  Their tattoos identified them as the Kings.  In all likelihood, their competition here was the Death Squad, the second biggest gang in the prison.  Not good.  Both gangs were violent and not likely to listen to reason.  Well, so be it.  Adam had made his move.  Now it was time to play it through.

            Blake was starting to come around.  The big man moaned, his face grimacing in pain. Shit!  Adam knew he’d never be able to handle seeing the betrayal in Blake’s eyes.  No, he had to do what needed done.  Alright. Time to go.  Picking up Blake’s unbroken hair dryer to use as a makeshift weapon, Adam carefully opened the door.  He was through it in an instant and running fast, keeping low as he went to avoid any stray bullets.

            At first, nothing happened.  He’d nearly made it around the curve of the hall before the first shout indicated he’d been seen.  Alright.  Time to go balls to the walls.

            Adam ran like his life depended on it.  He pounded through the halls of the prison, drawing more shouts and more inmates chasing him.  Already, he could hear a discouraging number of individual voices yelling at him to stop.  He had no idea how many inmates were after him now and didn’t care.  He simply ran.  Adam was in good shape.  He went jogging every day, usually going a couple of miles to burn off stress after work. Meanwhile, the inmates generally worked out with the weights.  Many of them were far stronger than Adam, but there was little chance for long-distance running in the exercise yard.  Maybe he couldn’t fight them, but he certainly could outrun them!

            That was, if he had anywhere he could run.

            Ahead of him were limited options.  Adam went right, racing down the hall towards the visitors’ area.  Wrong choice. The Death Squad had apparently claimed this section of the prison, and a large group of them yelled and pointed when Adam approached.  Adam skidded to a halt and turned around, retracing his steps to an access corridor. Thankfully, it was unlocked.  Adam ran into it, grateful for the natural bottleneck.

            Behind him, violence erupted as the Kings clashed with the Death Squad.  Good. While they were fighting each other, they weren’t chasing him.  Adam ran on, slamming into the panic bar on the door at the end and stumbling into the boiler room.

            Almost immediately, shouts rose and hands grabbed him.

            It was over, but Adam wasn’t about to give up without a fight.  He swung and kicked and headbutted, doing everything in his power to make capturing him difficult.  It only resulted in another beating, blows raining on his already-battered body until he finally dropped to his knees.  “Alright!  Alright, you got me, stop!”

            “Is that the fucking warden’s kid?!”

            “That’s him!”

            “Sure as shit, that’s Levine!”

            “Hot damn, it’s Christmas!”

            “Bitch, where the hell have you been?  We have been tearing this prison apart looking for you!”

            “Getting his ass reamed by that damned pedophile! Where the hell is Big Country anyway?”

            “I got away from him,” Adam panted, looking anxiously up at his grinning new captors.  “He was...  He kept hurting me, and I couldn’t take it anymore!”  Adam crawled back, letting every bit of the fear he felt show in his face. He’d never been much of an actor, but this time he didn’t have to act.  “You won’t, I mean, you’re not going to hurt me, right?  The way he did?  Please, let me go, and I promise I’ll put in a good word with my father!”

            He’d expected them to laugh, and they did. They dragged Adam further in and then threw him down on his face, dragging his hands back behind his back. Adam closed his eyes, resigned to his fate.  _I’ll keep my promise, Blake,_ he thought as the inmates tore strips of sheets and tied his hands.  _I won’t let them break me.  They can’t, not so long as you’ve still got a chance!_

            It was a risk.  Everything about what he’d done was risky.  There was a risk that a serious head injury could kill Blake or injure him for life.  There was a risk that someone could find and kill Blake before he could manage to free himself with the keys Adam had left in the big man’s pocket.  There was a risk one or both of them could be killed in the ongoing violence, or when the police finally managed to regain control of the prison.  And of course there was a risk that these inmates who had captured Adam might just gut him, rather than try to use him to negotiate with his father.  Even if they kept Adam alive, the chance that he could be severely injured, disfigured, or defiled was high.  But it was worth it.  No matter what happened now, Adam had a chance.

            If he’d stayed with Blake, Adam knew with absolute certainty that Blake would have had none.  The big man would have tried to protect Adam, fought and probably died. He would have thrown his life away, the inmates would have taken Adam anyway, and very little about his current situation would have changed.  Adam refused to let that happen.  One way or another, Adam would leave this prison a free man.  But Blake?  Blake had been convicted.  He couldn’t leave.  When this was all over, Blake would still have to live here, in this prison, surrounded by these very men.  And this time, they’d do more than just rape Blake.  No, Adam decided, Blake’s only chance was for Adam to convince the other inmates that he’d escaped, that he’d managed to outfox the larger man and make a break for it.  If he’d let Blake fight, Blake would have died.

            Either way, Adam would have been captured.  It wasn’t worth losing Blake.  And now, at least, Adam had something to live for.

            The Death Squad members were dragging Adam to his feet.  They forced him to move, pushing him out the door opposite the corridor where he’d come in. The sounds of fighting were loud from the corridor.  Apparently, the Kings weren’t willing to give up Adam without a fight.  That was probably why he was being moved, Adam thought as he stumbled forward.  As the warden’s son, Adam represented the single most valuable hostage in the entire prison.  The gang that held him also held most of the power.  It was an advantage both sides were willing to fight and die for.  Now they were doing exactly that.

            Adam’s captors pushed him forward, rapidly jogging down the hall, heading around towards the visitors’ section.  Adam imagined that they’d set up camp there. The Kings were in hot pursuit. Shouts, grunts and cries of pain, and the occasional gunshot marked the fighting.  By the sounds of it, it was pretty intense.  The inmate just behind Adam on the right suddenly cried out and went down as another shot rang out.

            “Shit, get moving!”

            Adam didn’t need told twice.  He ran, keeping his head ducked as low as he could go, grimacing and trying to keep as calm as possible as guns fired all around him. Something hot stung along the outer portion of his left shoulder.  The head of the inmate ahead of him seemed to crumple, a hole appearing.  The inmate toppled.  Adam had no time to consider what had just happened.  The hands on his arms forced him forward.  Adam tried not to think about what he was tripping over as he kept running, struggling to keep his footing.  Now his left shoulder was burning.  Something warm was running down his arm.  The hands forced him on, dragging him to the right through a doorway and then throwing him forward.

            Adam landed hard, crying out in pain as his ribs took most of his weight.  He hissed, trying to breathe through the pain even though the act of breathing made it worse.

            “Welcome to the party, Levine.”

            Adam looked up and into the battered face of Dan Turner, the leader of the Death Squad.  Turner was leaning against the wall, another inmate wrapping cloth around a bloody wound on his abdomen.  Adam blinked stupidly at him.  Then someone grabbed his arm and he was jerked back up.  He tried to get his feet under himself, but wasn’t permitted. Instead, Adam found himself dragged along the floor by his arm away from Turner.  He swore, his shoulders threatening to dislocate.  Then he was thrown into the corner.  “Stay put!” his captor barked.  “Or so help me, I’ll bust both of your knees!”

            Adam nodded.  He drew his knees up against his chest and tried to control his panic. Alright.  He’d been captured, and was under the control of one of the most violent gangs around.  But at least, for now, Blake was alright.

            It was the best he could hope for.


	12. Prisoner of War

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At the mercy of the gangs, Adam just tries to stay alive

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warnings, mind the tags

            “Let go of me!”

            “Shut the fuck up, Levine!”

            “No, let me go!”  Adam had been an unwilling participant in the running battle between the Death Squad and the Kings.  Turner had been dragging him along, forcing him to move as his gang retreated in the face of a violent thrust into their territory by the Kings.  Adam knew what they wanted - him.  The Kings were screaming for Turner and his men to give them Adam.  But Turner refused.

            The result had been the worst violence Adam had witnessed in his life.  Screaming, fanatical men attacked each other with abandon, using anything they could get their hands on or their bare hands, feet, and, more than once, teeth.  There seemed no humanity in their eyes.  The things they did to each other defied belief. Rabid dogs wouldn’t tear into each other like these men were doing.  The path Turner traveled was covered with blood and gore.  Yet still, it continued.

            Adam couldn’t understand it.  Intellectually, he understood that these men believed Adam was their best leverage against his father, but why couldn’t they understand the obvious truths?  First, Warden Levine would not be running the operation outside.  That was Daly.  That meant Adam was of no more value as a hostage than any other prisoner.  Second, harming Adam or any other guard would only make things so much worse for the inmates.  Corrections officers tended to be harsh, perhaps overly so, on inmates who’d attacked one of their own.  Third, the violence between the two gangs as they fought over him was just as likely to kill Adam as anyone else.  And finally, the most confusing thing in Adam’s mind.  Why did they fight?  What was it about being in a gang that these men believed was worth fighting and dying for, worth watching their friends be literally torn to pieces for, worth throwing everything away to follow the orders of a leader who was obviously completely irrational?

            He’d known Turner was violent, arrogant, and had little regard for human life.  But Adam hadn’t known until now just how completely delusional the man was.  His alpha male personality simply made it impossible for him to admit even the possibility of defeat.  Here he was, with his gang being chipped away, a trail of bodies following him, and he was still refusing to give Adam up.  His hand was like a steel clamp on Adam’s arm, dragging Adam after him while he used his other hand to fire back at the attacking Kings.

            Once again, Turner ran out of bullets.  He handed the weapon to one of his men to reload and seized Adam’s hair.  “This is the last time I am going to tell you this, Levine,” he snarled.  “Stop!  Fucking! Struggling!”

            “Just let me go!” Adam yelled, wincing.  “You can’t win this, and you’re going to get yourself and all the rest of your people killed if you keep this up!  Just let them have me, and...”

            The hand in his hair jerked his head painfully back.  “They’re not getting you!” he hissed.  “The fucking Kings will have to drag you out of my dying grasp before that happens!”

            “It’s gonna happen!” Adam managed.  “Don’t be stupid!  Just let them have me!”

            Turner didn’t listen.  Of course he didn’t listen.  He let go of Adam’s hair.  Adam enjoyed the welcome relief for only a short period of time before the gang leader had his gun again, once more firing back at the Kings as he continued to drag Adam down the hall.

            “Give him up, Turner!” one of the Kings yelled.

            “Not a chance in hell!” Turner yelled back. “Shelton had the right idea!  I’m not giving this bitch up, and if you fuckers try to take him from me?”  He pressed the barrel of his weapon against Adam’s temple.  “I will splatter his brains all over the fucking wall!”

            “You stupid motherfucker!  You kill him, and no one gets him!”

            “Precisely my point!  Now back the fuck up!”  The hand on his arm jerked Adam brutally forward.  “Move it, Levine!”

            Adam stumbled helplessly along, moving largely on autopilot.  His temple burned where the hot barrel of Turner’s pistol had been pressed against it. He’d likely have a mark.  One more for his collection.

            Adam’s hands were still bound behind his back with the cloth.  It made his shoulders ache, which only intensified into a small pit of agony when Turner dragged him forward by his arm.  How long had this gone on?  It seemed like hours, but Adam knew it was likely more like minutes.  He’d thought of using the barber scissors he’d hidden in his sock to free himself and had gotten them undetected into his hand.  But that was when the Kings made a hard push and Turner had grabbed him.  He’d been lucky enough that the scissors were still hidden up his sleeve, ironically covered by the cloth binding his wrists.  But they did him very little good now.

            Turner pulled Adam into a room with a bed in it, used for conjugal visits.  Despite the fact Adam knew the rooms were thoroughly cleaned, it still smelled like sex to Adam.  It was not something he wanted to focus on.  He stumbled and fell to one knee, panting.  Turner never let go of his arm, peering around the doorway and firing down the hall.  The man was gasping for air, sounding like a locomotive as he tried to catch his breath. Turner was in far worse shape than Adam, but hadn’t been running nearly as long.  Since his initial flight from the barber shop, Adam had been given very little in the way of rest.  Now his muscles were trembling and his lungs burned.  His injured ribs were one unending pain.

            Adam took advantage of the moment with Turner not looking at him to pull out the scissors, getting the weapon ready in his hand. Turner, he’d realized, wasn’t going to let him go.  Adam had no doubt that the desperate inmate would shoot Adam before he gave him up. This was going to end bloody. Adam forced himself to calm, to focus. He’d have one chance at this.  He needed to be prepared, and act quickly when it came.  The scissors were in his hand now, the blades hidden under his arm.  All he had to do was angle them slightly and twist his body, jerking hard to the right.  He could do this.  He had to do this.  It was the only chance he had of getting out alive.

            “Get up, Levine!”

            Another brutal jerk on Adam’s arm.  Adam cried out in pain and got up, stumbling after Turner. “For fuck’s sake, stop!  Please, just let me go!”

            Turner paid him no attention, just as Adam knew he wouldn’t.  Adam gritted his teeth.  He didn’t want to do this.  Blake had been right.  Adam didn’t belong here.  He wasn’t violent, wasn’t a killer.  The thought of what he had to do made him feel sick, made his heart pound, made his mind want to flee and hide in a corner.  But there was no choice.

            No choice.

            _I have to do this.  I have to! If this keeps up, he’s going to kill me and all these other people here will die, too.  Please, Father above, give me the strength to go through with it, and forgive me for what I am about to do!_

            Turner never saw it coming.  He was shouting orders, running down the hall again, dragging Adam after him.  He barely acknowledged it when Adam slowed.  When Adam suddenly slammed into him, knocking the surprised larger man across the hall and into the far wall, his lips curled in anger and irritation. And when he finally felt the bite of the scissors deep into his thigh, he only blinked in surprise.

            It was all Adam needed.  Desperation gave him strength.  Panic made him fast.  He twisted, jerking his arm free from Turner’s grasp and lowered his shoulder, once again slamming Turner into the wall.  Adam brought his head forward sharply.  His forehead impacted with Turner’s mouth.  Blood flew.  Turner screamed.  The gun was coming around, the deadly barrel swinging towards Adam.  Adam did the only thing he could.  He lunged at Turner’s gun arm and sank his teeth into the inmate’s wrist.

            Turner howled in pain and fury.  Adam shook the man’s wrist between his teeth like a dog with a chew toy.  He was rewarded when the weapon fell from Turner’s grasp.  Adam kicked frantically at it, sending it sliding back towards the attacking Kings.

            Turner’s left arm curled around, his fist slamming hard into Adam’s kidney.  Adam screamed in pain.  Turner pulled his mangled wrist free.  Another inmate grabbed Adam and Adam stabbed blindly with his scissors.  A spray of warmth covered Adam’s hands, soaked into his prison uniform.  A man screamed.

            Turner was after him again, grabbing Adam by his collar and jerking him forward.  The man’s eyes were those of a madman.  “I’ll kill you!” he howled.  “I’ll fucking kill you!  I’ll...!”

            A pop, like a firecracker on the Fourth of July. A spray of blood and gore flew from the side of Turner’s head.  His eyes glazed, his grip on Adam’s collar loosened.  Then he crumpled to the floor amid cheers and whoops.

            Adam spat the blood from his mouth, trying not to think about what diseases he might have gotten.  He looked down the hall.

            Blake stood there.  The pistol Adam had kicked down the hall was still in his hand.  His eyes were locked with Adam’s.  Around him, the Kings were cheering and patting him on the back as they finished off the remaining Death Squad members.

            “Nice shooting, Tex!”

            “Hell of a shot, Big Country!”

            “Welcome to the Kings!”

            It was this last that seemed to get through to Blake.  The big man flinched, finally lowering his weapon.  His blue, blue eyes were still locked on Adam.  “I ain’t joining,” he announced.  “All I want is him.”

            “Tough shit on both accounts, Shelton.  You just killed the leader of the Death Squad. Your ass just got a huge target painted on it!  You join or you die, motherfucker, and we’re glad to have you.  Hell of a shot!”

            Blake flinched again, barely noticeable unless someone had been staring at him.  Staring, like Adam was.  Once, Blake would have looked like he belonged with this violent, murderous gang. But now, he looked like what he was - innocent, trapped in this hell as much as Adam was.  Neither of them belonged here.  But when it was all over, Adam had a chance of walking out.  Blake still had year after year to spend in this prison. He’d worked so hard to keep out of the gangs, away from the prison politics.  But the Kings were right.  Blake had no choice now.  Like it or not, the gentle band leader had just joined the most violent gang in the prison.

            “What about him?”

            Adam couldn’t believe it.  In spite of everything, Blake was still only concerned about him.

            “This bitch is King property now.”  The apparent leader, Adam had no idea what his name was, was coming closer, grinning at Adam.

            Adam couldn’t help it.  He was still tightly strung, adrenalin still pumping through his bloodstream.  When the man reached for him he simply reacted.  He ducked under the reaching hand and the bloody scissors flashed, stabbed out.

            The man swore, clutching at his bleeding hand. Then he backhanded Adam.

            Stars flashed before Adam’s eyes.  He fell heavily to the floor, losing his grip on the scissors.  The inmate kicked them away.  A foot impacted with his battered ribs, making him scream in agony.  He looked up and saw the man drawing back for another kick.

            “Touch him again and I will blow your fucking head off!”

            Instantly, everyone went silent.  Adam, gasping, looked down the hall and saw Blake leveling his weapon once again, this time aiming at the man standing over Adam.  _No, Blake!_ Adam thought, trying desperately to communicate with his eyes. If Blake pulled the trigger, standing here surrounded by the Kings?  They’d turn on him in an instant.  Blake would be slaughtered where he stood, right before Adam’s eyes.

            But then, to Adam’s amazement, the man started to laugh.  He threw back his head, lost in mirth, all but oblivious to his bleeding hand.  And he was roaring with laughter.  Now he was actually doubled over, slapping at his knee with his uninjured hand.  “Oh!” he managed.  “Oh, that’s just too much!”

            Adam looked at Blake, saw his own confusion mirrored there.  Neither of them caught the signal from the King’s wounded leader.

            Before he could react, Blake was on the floor, his weapon pulled up over his head and dragged out of his hand.  Adam screamed, tried to race towards him.  But the King’s leader had hold of Adam’s arm, held him back.  Adam struggled frantically, watching helplessly as Blake was subdued, held down on the floor with a gun on his head.  “Let go of him!  Blake!  _Blake!_   For fuck’s sake, leave him alone!  I’ll do whatever you want, just don’t hurt him, please!”

            “Ho-lee shit!”  Once again, the King’s leader was laughing.  “Do you see this shit, boys?”

            “We see it, Ortega!”

            “Fucking Stockholm syndrome, man!”

            “That explains Levine, but what’s Shelton’s problem?”

            “Ain’t he a little old for you, Big Country?”

            “Fuck you!” Blake snarled.  His eyes were still on Adam.  “Adam, you just shut the fuck up, ya hear me?!  Ortega, you need to listen to me!”

            Ortega was apparently the name of the King’s leader. Adam had stopped struggling to reach Blake when Blake had yelled at him.  But he was shaking.  He trusted Blake with his life.  He just didn’t know what the big man had in mind.

            Blake’s blue eyes were fixed on Ortega.  “You got Levine now,” he said.  “There ain’t no one left alive in this prison to dispute that. He’s yours.  That means you got nothing to worry about!”

            “True.”  Ortega pulled Adam back a step and threw an arm around the smaller man’s shoulders like they were old friends.  “I’m listening, so talk fast.”

            Blake looked around.  “I ain’t talking from the fucking floor, Ortega!  You dumb ganger assholes are too stupid to realize that I’m here to save your asses!  Get these assholes offa me and let’s talk!”

            To Adam’s immense relief, Ortega nodded. The men climbed off of Blake.  The big man got to his feet, dusting himself off and looking irritated.  “Alright, Big Country,” Ortega called.  “Start talking.  You got my attention.”

            “This is what you dumb gang bangers haven’t seemed to have figured out,” Blake began.  “This shit here, the riot?  It’s got an expiration date.  It always did!  Now those fucking pigs outside have already cut the power and the water.  It’s getting pretty damned ripe in here, and the temperature’s climbing by the minute.  And what about food?  With the power out, the shit’s gonna spoil fast, and then what are you going to eat? That’s not even considering how many dead bodies this place has now!  You’ve been dumping ‘em in the exercise yard, and that’s already loaded.  Now you just added to the mess in here!  This prison is about to be unlivable.  You have got to deal!”

            “And that’s precisely why we got your little boy toy here!” Ortega called, giving Adam a shake.

            Blake rolled his eyes and gave an exaggerated groan. “And that’s why you’re a stupid idiot. You got a son, don’t you, Ortega?”

            Ortega’s smile vanished.  He seized Adam’s chin in a vice grip.  “You be damned careful about what you say next, Shelton!  My little boy’s only four years old!”

            “And he’s got one hell of a role model for his daddy, don’t he?  Ow, son of a bitch!”

            Adam cried out and started forward as Blake fell to his knees, his hand clutching at his wounded knee where he’d just been kicked. “Stop it, you stupid shits! Blake’s got more brains when he’s drunk than any of you have combined on your best day!  Listen to him!”

            “Your pretty little boy really has the hots for you, doesn’t he?” Ortega wondered.  “Damn, Big Country, you must have fucked him full!”

            “Never mind Levine!” Blake called, wincing as he got back to his feet.  “Think about your boy, Ortega, and don’t have these fuckers hit me again while you do it! You just had someone attack me because I made a crack about your parenting skills.  Now think about what’s been happening to Levine!”

            Ortega snorted.  “You mean what you’ve been doing to him?  Although by the looks of things, he’s enjoying it now!”

            “You get the point.”  Blake pointed towards the front of the prison.  “Warden Levine is out there ready to go insane, ready to blow my brains out the back of my head after he puts my dick through a pencil sharpener.  Does that sound like someone capable of making rational decisions in a major tactical situation like this?!”

            “That’s the point!  He’ll do anything for his kid!”

            “And that’s why he’s not in charge out there!” Blake roared.  “You dumb motherfuckers have been trying to deal with Warden Levine all this time, but he ain’t the one calling the shots!”

            “Blake’s right,” Adam called.  He caught Blake’s eye, received a small nod of approval.  “When you took me up on the roof, that phone call? I only talked to my dad long enough to tell him that I was alright.  The rest of the time, I was talking to their negotiator.  It’s not dad that’s in charge out there.  It never was!”

            “And that means that Levine’s not worth anything more than any other inmate in here, except for one thing - a token of good faith.”

            Now everyone was paying close attention. Blake licked his lips and continued. “One way or another, this shit in here has got to end.  And right now, the Kings are standing up on top of the heap with the power to set themselves up as true kings when this is all over!”

            Adam sucked in his breath.  Blake’s blue eyes gleamed with cunning as he looked around. “The cops are waiting outside there with a shitload of weapons, ready to open up until the only thing that moves in this place is the flies!  And before you start flapping your gums about how you beat ‘em back before, think for a minute!  Y’all just fought a war through these halls with guns blazing!  Exactly how much ammo do you have left?  Hell, how many men you got left still capable of fighting?  I’m looking around and I’m seeing a lot of limping, bleeding men.  You’re bleeding yourself, Ortega!”

            “Thanks to your fucking boytoy!”

            “Doesn’t matter why, the fact is you’re bleeding! And you’re in a prison with no food, no water, no circulating air, and rapidly filling up with rotting, stinking bodies.  Your wounds are probably already infected!  You need to end this, Ortega!  And now you got a chance to end it with all the odds in your favor. Because we’re all going to another home, gentlemen.”  Blake spread his hands, indicating the prison.  “We’re going to be bussed out of here and sent to other prisons, maybe prisons that the Death Squad holds the majority if we’re not careful.  You want some consideration?  You gotta play ball!  And that means we do this smart!”

            “You got a plan.”  Ortega’s face looked sly as he looked at Blake.

            “I got a plan,” Blake confirmed.  “And if you play it my way, we’re all gonna walk out of here in better shape than when this started!”


	13. Out Of The Darkness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Adam and Blake have some fleeting moments together before they put Blake's plan into action

            Adam really was a beautiful man.

            Blake had commandeered one of the conjugal visitation rooms, wanting a double bed for his last night with Adam.  Last night, they’d made love with something like desperation.  Adam had clung to Blake, constantly begging for more, more, taking everything Blake had to give until they were both absolutely spent. Blake knew that Ortega and his sycophants believed Adam had some sort of Stockholm Syndrome.  They were probably right.  Didn’t matter.  The sun was rising, coming through the frosted glass of the transparent bricks making the window.  The square of light had been steadily moving down the wall towards the bed as the sun peeked up over the horizon.  Now it was falling on Adam’s face as he slept.  With his eyes closed, Adam’s face had almost a childlike innocence.  His head rested on Blake’s bicep, the fingers of one hand curled against Blake’s chest.  His lips were partially opened, his breaths warm.

            Blake moved his hand, gently tracing little circles on Adam’s tattooed back. He watched the smaller man sleep. He wished Adam never had to wake up, that he could stay here like this, in Blake’s arms, forever.  That he wouldn’t have to step out of this room and face up to all that would await him once he passed through the doorway.  That when it was all over, Adam would never have to look into the mirror and face up to what he’d done.  That he wouldn’t regret being with Blake.

            Blake’s heart ached.  His eyes burned.  Since he’d come to this hell, he’d cried a few times from pain, from humiliation, back when he’d first arrived.  The men who had used him had laughed at him, mocked his tears, or worse, asked him if he liked it when little boys cried?  After that last, Blake had no longer allowed himself the luxury of tears.

            He wanted to cry now.

            Blake wanted to shed tears for himself, for Adam, for Adam’s father, and most especially for the young boy who he’d failed so miserably, who would never grow to be a man.  He wanted to crush Adam to his chest and sob uncontrollably.  To release all the pain that he’d kept locked away deep inside for all these years, letting it churn and twist, letting it make him hard and mean, giving him the strength to survive.

            He didn’t want to be Big Country anymore.

            But when Adam walked out that door, Big Country would be all he had left.  Blake would be taken to another facility to serve out the rest of his time, but only the location would be different.  He’d have different faces, different views. But he would still be behind the same bars, trapped in a cell with strangers, fed food that wasn’t fit for the general public, and work for pennies.  And he’d still have to deal with the politics of the prison.  If the Kings forced him to remain in their ranks, his life would get even more difficult.  But that had always been the case.  The rules hadn’t changed.  To survive, he had to be strong.  And Blake knew he needed to survive.  He had to get through this, to get out and do whatever he could, whatever it took, to make things better for kids like Brandon. 

            Brandon’s Melody was Blake’s secret joy.  From behind bars, Blake had been working, gutting his savings and retirement to invest.  He’d been shockingly successful.  Now he had a sizeable amount that he planned to turn into a charity that would identify and help abused and exploited children, get them the help they so desperately needed.  As a convicted sex offender, Blake had no illusions about ever being able to work with children again.  But through his charity, he could send out others, make it possible to help kids like Brandon.

            For years, Brandon’s Melody had been Blake’s sole reason for living.  And then there was Adam.  Until Adam had come into his life, Blake had been focused only on surviving.  For Adam, Blake was suddenly alive again.  Until Adam had come into his life, Blake realized, he’d been only surviving. But with Adam, he was living once more. For Adam, he’d been willing to fight and die, to do whatever it took.  But it wasn’t just because of Brandon, Blake realized.  Adam brought something else out in Blake, something Blake had believed long dead.  For the first time since college, Blake Shelton had fallen in love.  And to hell with every shrink in the world who would tell him that what he was feeling was only intensified by their desperate, dangerous situation and would likely not last long term.  Right now, holding Adam in his arms, Blake knew without a doubt that he was absolutely, desperately, hopelessly, head over heels in love with Adam Levine, corrections officer and son of the warden.

            The sheer danger that put Adam in was enough to take Blake’s breath away.

            Did Adam even realize what he’d done here?  Blake had tried to warn him, reminded him of the consequences of willingly having sexual relations with an inmate as a guard.  He’d even reminded Adam that he wasn’t clean, that others had been at him and Adam was putting himself in danger by being intimate with him. And Adam hadn’t seemed to care. It was more than recklessness, more than the desperation of his situation.  Adam, Blake realized, loved him in return.

            It was funny.  Blake was an inmate behind bars, and Adam was free.  But in many ways, Blake had more freedom than Adam did.  Blake was free to love as he pleased, to give away his heart to anyone he wished.  But Adam was restricted.  Adam was so sad, so desperately lonely, that he’d eagerly sought out love in the most unlikely of places.  He’d run into the arms of an inmate who humiliated him, beat him, and, let’s not guild the lily, sexually assaulted him in front of a prison full of uncaring convicts. Violent inmates who had videoed the entire encounter and then sent it to the television crews.  Adam’s beating and assault had been broadcast to the entire world, to his father, his family, his friends.  Every future encounter Adam would have from that point on would be potentially colored by what the world thought they’d viewed.  Adam had come into the prison as a corrections officer, and would leave it as a victim.  A man who had been beaten and assaulted and likely raped.  Did Adam have any idea of what that meant, of how it would affect his future relationships?  Did he consider that the video would never, ever go away?  That he might someday have children who could one day stumble over it, watch in horror as their father was abused?

            Somehow, Blake doubted it.  That truth wouldn’t sink in until later.  A lot of what had happened to Adam wouldn’t hit him until later.  Adam Levine would never be the same man again.  If the real truth ever came out, his integrity would come under fire.  His honor would be questioned.  His very identity would be changed.  Already, he’d gone from the man he was to hostage and victim.  If the truth came out, Adam would be judged harshly.  Maybe he’d even be charged!  The thought of the beautiful man in his arms being locked up, going through what Blake had gone through, what he’d been threatened with when the riot started, made Blake want to scream.

            Blake squeezed his eyes shut.  No.  No one could know.  He had to talk to Adam.

            He bent down and pressed his lips to Adam’s forehead.  “Adam?” he called softly.

            “Mmm, Blake?”  Adam’s eyes didn’t open.  “Love you, Blake!”

            That cut like a knife.  Blake crushed the smaller man to him.  “I love you too, Rockstar!  I love you, so, so much!”

            Adam hummed, snuggling against Blake’s chest.  He was, Blake realized with amusement, still asleep.  The poor little guy was exhausted.  Last night had likely been the most he’d really slept since his ordeal started, and was certainly the first time he’d been unrestrained.  The Kings had locked Blake and Adam into the room last night, which ironically meant that Adam finally had some real freedom of movement.  Naturally, the lovers had taken quick advantage of that.

            Adam was finally waking up, rubbing at his sleepy eyes before they blinked up at Blake.  He smiled, and Blake smiled back.  But then the hazel eyes widened in alarm, and Adam sat up.  “Blake!  What’s wrong?”

            Blake was a bit confused at first.  But then Adam started frantically kissing him, wiping at Blake’s face, and he realized the truth.  He’d been crying after all.  Tears ran unchecked down his cheeks as he looked at Adam, watching as he tried desperately to stem the flow.  “Adam?” he managed.  “We need to talk, baby.”

            “Shhh, don’t cry, please don’t cry!”  Those eyes.  They were big and round and serious, welling with their own tears as his efforts to stop Blake’s were unsuccessful.  “Are you scared, Big Country?”

            It was funny how Adam could call him that without bringing up any of the negative connotations that went along with it.  “I am,” Blake admitted.

            “Don’t be!  I’ll get you out of here, I’ll get a new lawyer, I’ll petition, I’ll plead your case, hire a detective to check out Brandon’s mom, whatever it takes!  And I’ll tell them everything, Blake, all you’ve done for me to protect me here, and...”

            “No!”  Blake rolled over, leaning over Adam and holding his upper arms, pinning the smaller man to the bed and immediately quieting him.  “Adam, that is the last thing you can do!  I need you to listen to me, and if you love me, you’ll do exactly as I say!  Do you understand me?”

            Those eyes.  Big and hazel and scared, full of tears and trust as they looked up at Blake.  Adam nodded.  “Alright.”

            “Adam, this is how it’s going to go,” Blake began.  “You already told them that I hadn’t really been attacking you like we made it seem here, and we can’t change that.  But now you’re going to tell them that I was manipulating you into having sex with me.  You held off as long as you could, but you finally had to give in.  Then you tried to make a break for it and get away, and the gangs caught you, and it went down just the way all those fuckers outside believed it went down.  Except you never had Stockholm Syndrome.  You just were trying to protect yourself, ya hear?  You’d already had to let me have you, and if you didn’t keep up the act, you would have been gang raped all last night!  That’s how this ended up here today.  And it’s the only reason, the _only_ reason, that you did this.”

            “But Blake...!”

            Blake gave him a shake.  “What we did last night was more of you doing what you had to do to survive, and at least this time, you could make me wear a condom!  That’s your story, Adam.  I never broke you.  You consented, but only because you had no other choice.  And that is the story you stick to!  You cannot testify for me, Adam, because that will ruin you and I won’t have it!  You try that shit, and you’re going to get me killed in here!”

            “But I can’t leave you in here, Blake!  You’re innocent!”

            “You cannot think that way, Rockstar,” Blake urged.  “I gotta serve my time.  And maybe, when it’s all over, if you still want fuck-all to do with me, we can have something.  But you cannot be the one to try to get me out.”  He grimaced.  “I’ll spread the word that all I was doing was trying to protect my fucktoy, thinking I’d broken you and you’d testify for me.  Then I’ll curse your name when you don’t say a word on my behalf, go back to brooding again, and hopefully I’ll be allowed to go to a prison where I won’t need the Kings to protect me from the Death Squad.  But chances are, I’m going to have to join the Kings to survive. And if I’m in a gang, Adam, especially a gang with the reach of the Kings or the Death Squad?  Then you absolutely cannot be involved, not now or ever! Do you understand?”

            Adam didn’t like it.  Of course he wouldn’t like it.  He wouldn’t be Adam if he didn’t protest, didn’t argue and fight.  But in the end, even the stubborn little shit he’d fallen in love with couldn’t deny the truth of Blake’s logic.  Adam would become a target, and so would everyone he cared about. Blake had to separate the two of them. It was the only way to protect him.

            The light went out of Adam’s eyes, making them dull and sad and empty. “Alright,” he said in a small voice. “If you’re sure that’s what I have to do, then I’ll do it.”

            Blake held him.  He kissed Adam over and over, worshipped his body, and made love to him one last time. Adam still made those little sounds that drove him wild, but he didn’t say a word.  The hazel eyes watched Blake’s every move.  When they finished and Blake cleaned them up, Adam finally said what was on his mind.  “Blake, am I ever going to see you again?”

            “I don’t think so, Adam,” Blake replied truthfully.  “And the thing is, that just might be for the best.”

            He had to tie Adam’s hands again.  At least this would be the last time he’d have to do it.  He did it as gently as he could, pulling Adam’s hands behind his back and wrapping the rope around his wrists as though he were wrapping a precious, fragile gift.  In a way, he was.  Adam allowed it, leaning back unhappily against Blake when it was finished.  “Is this going to work?”

            “Only one way to find out.”  He kissed Adam for the last time.  “It’s time.”

            Adam nodded.  “I love you.”

            “I love you, too.”

            Then the Kings were unlocking the door, and Blake was leading Adam down the hall towards the entrance.

            Outside was what looked like half an army.  Flashing lights gleamed off of weapons and body armor.  Blake put one arm loosely around Adam’s shoulders, visibly holding the smaller man without displaying any real threat.  Moving just before the Kings, Blake walked out with Adam. He moved forward, stopping when he was about five feet away from the door, and waited as the rest of the Kings moved to join him.  Blake nodded, and raised the empty hand not holding Adam, seeing the gang raising their own hands in response.  Then he raised his other hand, letting go of Adam.

            Adam looked back at him, his face pale.  Blake nodded.  Adam swallowed and then walked forward, walking away from Blake, moving towards the frantically waving negotiator who was directing him back behind the tactical team.

            As soon as Adam was in the clear, Blake found himself flat on his face.  No surprise there.  Blake winced, feeling his arms roughly dragged back and secured. His eyes were searching around the booted feet all around him, seeking Adam.  There.  Adam was watching, wide-eyed, back with the negotiator.  Adam’s hands were being untied.  And then the warden himself was there, dragging his wayward son into his arms for a fierce embrace.

            Blake smiled, seeing Adam’s face soften, seeing Adam’s arms rise up to encircle his father.  And then Blake was dragged to his feet, forced forward towards a waiting bus, ready to transport him to a holding facility.  He scanned the crowd, but he couldn’t see Adam anymore.  Somewhere out there, Adam was back with his father. Back where he belonged.

            The bus smelled like urine and unwashed bodies.  The seat was somewhat sticky when he sat down.  Ortega plopped into the seat next to him.  “So what happens now?” the gang leader wanted to know.

            “Now, if I’m lucky, that skinny tattooed bastard will put in a good word for me, get me the fuck away from scum like you, Ortega,” Blake said boldly.

            Ortega laughed.  “I knew it! I fucking knew you were playing Levine! You’re just too damned smart for anything else!”  He shook his head and eyed Blake.  “So how was he?”

            “Tight and squirmy, just like I like ‘em.”

            “Nice!  Hope he was worth the beating you’re gonna get for causing all this shit, Shelton. Should have given up the bitch in the first place.”

            Blake shrugged.  He’d already known that was going to happen.  “Just don’t forget who just got you out of that shithole smelling like a rose. The Kings handed over the warden’s kid, ended the riot.  That’s gonna look real good on your record when it comes time for parole.”

            “Getting us into a prison we control, too,” Ortega admitted.  “I gotta admit, it was a hell of a plan!  We give up the warden’s kid, bring him out with us so we don’t get shot, and blame everything on the fucking Death Squad. Now everyone thinks those fuckers started this shit and we ended it!”  He laughed again.  “You did pretty damned good with that negotiation shit, Shelton.  As far as prisons go, I hear this one we’re going to is half decent.  A lot less corruption, anyway, at least against us!  Nice job!”  He bumped his shoulder into Blake’s.  “Welcome aboard!”

            “I didn’t join shit.”

            “You will.”  Ortega settled back with a smirk on his face.  “Matter of time.”

            He was right, of course.  But he didn’t need to know that.  Blake scoffed.  “Levine will get me out of here long before that happens, Ortega.”  No chance of that.  Adam would keep quiet, go on with his life, and with any luck, Blake would serve out his time peacefully.

            “Aww, ain’t that cute?  Tell you what.  Since I like you, I’ll make sure we don’t mess up that pretty face of yours too much before you get to see your little boyfriend again.  If the bitch decides to come see you!”

            Blake made his face into an angry scowl.  “He better!”

            “Once he’s out, who knows what he’ll do.  Maybe he’ll play you.”

            “He does, I’ll kill that little fucker!”

            “True love, man!”  Ortega was giving Blake a look.  “You know, you do clean up pretty damned nice.  Maybe you and I can get to know each other a little better when we get where we’re going?”

            “Fuck off.”

            “Buy me dinner first, bitch.  But yeah. Yeah, I can see that.”  He was smiling at Blake again.  “Nice, Shelton.  Real, real nice!”

            Blake shifted, putting his back more towards the other inmate, and looked out the window.  He was facing away from the prison, away from Adam.  Maybe that was for the best.  Right now, Blake wasn’t sure he wanted to see Adam.  If he did, he had no idea what he might do.


	14. Aftermath

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Adam must deal with his family after the riot

            He had to go through a humiliating medical exam, which naturally included a rape kit.  He’d weakly protested, explaining that only Blake had been at him, and that he’d pulled out or used a condom.  Didn’t matter, he was told.  They were still able to get DNA to process for evidence.  In fact, they’d explained, there was actually enough sperm in pre-ejaculate to impregnate a woman.  Adam had not known that.  He wasn’t sure what to think about it.  Blake had pulled out in order to prevent giving him diseases, but that may not have mattered.  Well, there wasn’t anything he could do about it now, was there?  If Adam ended up with an STD, he’d deal with it.

            Meanwhile, they’d swabbed, taken pictures, drawn blood, and given him prophylactic antibiotics.  They’d measured and photographed every bruise and the marks on his wrists from being bound. They’d taken multiple photographs, complete with measurements, of the bruises on Adam’s hips, the marks of his lover’s hands.  And they’d been very concerned over the bruises on Adam’s throat.  Adam had managed to forget about those.  Now he had to explain how Blake had choked him to force the other inmates to leave him with Blake.

            Being reminded of the bruises on his throat had reinforced to Adam the fact that Blake, not Adam, would be left in prison to deal with the consequences of his actions.  All he’d done to try to protect Adam would come back and haunt Blake now.  And whatever happened now, it would be Blake who would suffer the most for it.  Blake had a plan.  He’d told Adam what to do, what to say.

            Adam did as he was told.

            His father took him home, both of his brothers stopping in to eat supper, check up on Adam.  Both of his former stepmothers showed up as well, with Adam’s half-brothers and sisters. Dinners with family had always been difficult.  Now it was even more so.  Adam felt on display.  No one knew what to say to him, how to act.  Finally Joy, his father’s youngest ex-wife, threw down her fork.  “Alright, I’m just going to come out and say it,” she announced.  “Marlon, this whole thing is all your fault!”

            Uproar.  Yelling, voices accusing Marlon, voices defending him.  Adam leaned forward, rested his face in his hands with his elbows on the table and let the din wash over him.

            “ENOUGH!”  Benjamin, shouting everyone down.  Silence fell as Benjamin got up, moving around the table to Adam.  “Adam?” he began.  “We’re a fucked-up family.  We’ve been a fucked-up family for a long time, and a lot of that has fallen on you. It took me three years of AA and a shitload of therapy to realize that, but you have been the punching bag of this family for pretty much your entire life, especially with me and Levi and dad!”

            “Unless Marlon was married, that was,” Penny, his father’s oldest ex-wife, called.

            “You’re right,” Benjamin announced, surprising everyone.  “When dad had a wife, that took a lot of the pressure off of Adam.  But as soon as they were gone, it was right back to him.  Nothing you did was ever good enough, Adam.  And the end result was you taking that job in the prison, getting caught up in that riot!”

            “Because you insisted he take it, Marlon!” Joy insisted.  “I said the moment I heard about it that Adam wasn’t cut out to be a corrections officer.  Now look at what happened!”

            “What did happen, Adam?”  Benjamin’s voice was surprisingly soft.  “I know, in the past, we let you down.  We were never there for you the way a family should be.  But Adam, since the riot happened, and I found out you’d been taken? Well, I wasn’t at the press conference because I was getting everyone together.  And that’s how we’ve been since - together.  Because at the end of the day, no matter what, we’re still family. It’s about damned time that meant something!”

            Adam looked up in surprise.

            “Benny’s right, Adam,” Marlon said softly.  “This is about family.  We came way too close these past few days to losing one of our own.  Now, I’ve been sitting here, hoping Benny would say it, or Levi, or Joy, or, hell, anyone else besides me.  But it’s past time I stopped being a coward.  Adam, look at me?”

            Adam had inherited his eyes from his father.  The hazel depths that stared back at him had expressed a lot of emotion during Adam’s lifetime, usually anger or disappointment.  But now, to Adam’s shock, they were welling up with tears. “If there’s blame to be placed here, then I’ll accept it.  Joy’s right. You never should have been a CO, never should have been in that prison.  But I pushed you into it, and that’s why you were there, and why you were taken.” He rubbed at his eyes.  Joseph, Adam’s stepbrother, handed Marlon a tissue and he took it, blowing his nose.  More tissues were being handed out all around the table.  “Adam, we all saw that video.  I sat there in a hard folding chair in the tactical tent, and I watched on a monitor while my boy was beaten to a pulp in front of a cheering crowd. And then he forced you to get on your knees in front of that same crowd, right on the camera.  And he made you...  Then he made you...”

            “It wasn’t real, dad,” Adam whispered, looking down.

            “The bruises all over your face say otherwise,” Levi pointed out.

            “Ok, yeah, the beating, that was real.  But he had to!  Blake beat the shit out of me because if he hadn’t done it, then half the inmates in that prison would have lined up to do it.  And the other half would have lined up to rape me afterwards!  But that didn’t happen!” he called loudly over the sobs that sounded around the table.  “What Blake did made sure that he was the only one who touched me!”

            “But he touched you!”

            Adam clenched his fists.  “I was trapped in that prison in the middle of a riot,” he explained, forcing his voice to stay calm.  “And I’m the warden’s son.  When the inmates first caught me, the very first thing they did was tie me up and drag me into the laundry room.  They were literally just about to gang rape me when Blake came in and made them sell me to him!”

            Silence around the table.  Adam looked up, caught his father’s eyes.  Marlon nodded.  “Go on, Adam. Tell us what happened.”

            “It’s just what I told the investigators.  Blake Shelton was a powerful inmate, but he was a loner.  I realized that he could be manipulated, that if I cooperated with him, I could get him to protect me.  And it worked, right up until the end when I ended up captured by the Kings!”

            “Who put the bruises on your neck, Adam?”

            Adam’s eyes dropped to his plate again.  “Blake.  He choked me to prove to some gang members that he’d kill me before he’d give me up. And he kept me tied up pretty much the whole time he had me.  When he attacked me on that video, it happened because I ran away from him and got caught by the other inmates.  But Blake, he didn’t do what he pretended to do in that video, alright?  I’m sorry you had to see it, but there wasn’t any choice! If he hadn’t done that, made it look like he was assaulting me, that would have been a very different video with a lot more stars!”

            “Did he rape you, Adam?” Joy wanted to know.

            “He...  I...” Adam swallowed hard.  “The riot went on and on, and it got harder for Blake to keep me, protect me.  And he was attracted to me.  I gave him what he wanted from me, so that he’d keep protecting me.  But he never forced me!”

            “Adam, you were his captive!” Levi snapped.  “He may have rescued you, but he kept you prisoner, he tied you up, he beat you, he choked you!  You couldn’t possibly consent to sex with him under those circumstances.  What he did to you was rape, Adam.  Plain and simple!”

            Adam grimaced.  “He did not rape me!”

            “Adam, it’s only natural that you don’t want to think of yourself as a victim,” Joy soothed.  “But Levi’s right.  You couldn’t have consented under those conditions!”

            Adam thought back to the first time he’d made love to Blake.  Blake, freshly barbered and shaved, looking at Adam with those blue eyes.  Those dimples when he smiled.  _“You take your time, baby.  Your pace.  I’ve controlled you enough.  This time, you move when you’re ready.”_

            Levi was speaking again.  “The bottom line is that, whatever his reasoning, this Blake character assaulted Adam! We’ve got a video of him being beaten. He has bruises on his neck where he was choked, he’s got cuts on his wrists from being bound, and there’s a rape kit with Shelton’s DNA and evidence of sexual contact!  We’ve got this fucker, dad!”  Levi’s fist pounded on the table.  “I’m going after him.  He’s going to pay for what he’s done.  I’ll make him sorry he ever even _looked_ at my brother!  I will run that sick son of a bitch through the mill, and by the time I’m done with him, he won’t even stand a chance at parole until he’s at least one hundred and six years old!”

            _“Stop!”_ Adam roared.  “Just stop, would you?  I can’t do this anymore!  Blake didn’t rape me!  He made the first moves, he kissed me first, he told me he was attracted to me.  But I am the one who initiated sex with him, alright?!  We made love and he let me be in control of it and it was great but then I had to knock him out because I knew he’d only done it because he knew he was going to die! And he wouldn’t even finish inside of me because he’d been raped so much when he first got to the prison.  He was afraid he wasn’t clean, that he’d give me something!  But he let me cut his hair and make love to him because he never thought he’d finish that day alive.  Blake was going to _die_ for me, he was going to do anything it took to try to protect me even though he knew it was hopeless and they were going to take me anyway!  And so I hit him, and handcuffed him to the chair and I ran out.  And of course the gangs caught me.  Then they fought over me and Turner was going to kill me rather than give me up but Blake shot him...”

            “Blake shot Turner?” Marlon asked, incredulous.

            “Let me finish!  Blake shot him and then he talked the Kings into surrendering me and turning themselves in in exchange for being sent to a prison the Death Squad didn’t control. And the Kings let us spend the night together in one of the conjugal visit rooms.  We made love and slept together in a real bed and it was wonderful, dad, because by then I knew for sure that I’d fallen in love with him...”

            “Adam!  You don’t know what you’re saying!”

            “I know exactly what I’m saying, Penny!  It wasn’t Stockholm Syndrome or anything like that.  It was just me falling for a music teacher that got falsely accused of something horrible by a bitch of a mother that was more interested in the high school band leader than the fact she was abusing and molesting her own son so badly he ended up killing himself!  And I know if I could get a detective or something, have someone really look into what happened, I could prove that Blake’s innocent!”

            “Adam?”  his father began.  “Carson Daly told you about Blake.  He’s a master manipulator...”

            “No,” Adam snapped.  “No, dad, that isn’t it!  If Blake wanted to manipulate me, he would have had me tell the truth, just like I’m doing here now.  But he knew I’d be in trouble if it ever got out that I had sex with an inmate as a corrections officer!  And he still has to live with what happened there, how he kept the Kings from having me for so long!”

            “Yeah, he does,” Marlon mused, looking thoughtful.  “The fact that he choked you, threatened to kill you rather than give you up the first time they asked?  They’re going to make him pay for that all by itself.  If it gets out that he was actually helping you all this time?” He shook his head.  “Things are going to get real bad for him!”

            “Why is that, dad?” Levi challenged.  “Your job is to protect those inmates, see to it that they serve their time.  Your job is to rehabilitate them so they can rejoin society!  But it seems like corruption is rampant in that prison.  You know there’s going to be a massive investigation after this! What are they going to find?”

            “I know one thing they’ll find,” Adam said bitterly.  “Blake said that the guards let him be attacked and raped repeatedly when he first got there.  I’m betting he wasn’t alone!  How many more inmates did the guards let that happen to?!  Then there’s corrupt parole officers, physician assistants that sell drugs, COs who enjoy beating on inmates...  There was a reason that those guards were forced to fight each other, alright?!”

            “I know.”  Everyone went silent at Marlon’s quiet confession.  “I’ve known for years about the corruption in the prison, but I did nothing to stop it.  Because I was being paid well.”

            Adam sucked in his breath.  Marlon nodded, seeing the stunned eyes of his family on him.  “Yes, the corruption in my prison system started at the top.  And that’s why the prisoners eventually rioted. So you’re right, Joy.  Everything that happened to Adam?  It’s all my fault.”

            “They’re prisoners, dad,” Adam said quietly.  “Yeah, they went after me specifically because I’m your son.  And Blake helped me there, too.  He’s the one that pointed out that, because they had me, there was no way you’d be involved in the negotiations.  And that’s how he eventually got them to give me up.  But if what you’re saying is true?  Then things have got to change!”

            “They are,” Marlon declared.  “Starting with me.  I’m resigning as warden.  As soon as I’ve finished with all the transfers and the clean-up and repair of the prison, I’m turning in my resignation.  My replacement will have a clean slate to start with, just as it should be.”

            “But what about Adam?”  Levi had lost his confidence now.  “Adam might be able to avoid charges given the circumstances, but he’s still going to have to...”

            “It can’t leave this room!” Adam said quickly.  “And not because I’m afraid to face charges.  I’m not ashamed of what I did, and if there’s a price to be paid for it, I’ll pay it.  But Blake is still in prison.  Right now, he’s got a reputation as the guy who beat and raped the warden’s kid and got the Kings to surrender peacefully.  But the Kings expect him to join them.  Blake killed the leader of the Death Squad during that riot!  If he doesn’t align himself with the Kings, the Death Squad is going to come after him.  And if the truth comes out about what really happened between him and me while he had me?  Then the Kings won’t protect him, either!  Blake insisted I not tell the truth because he has to finish his time.  He knows that if the full truth is known, it will ruin me and get him killed.  Because even if he gets a new trial, he’ll still have to wait, in that prison, for his day in court!”

            “There’s more to it,” Marlon said quietly.  “Adam, the Kings are an extremely well-connected gang.  If it came out that Shelton helped you, it’s possible that they could put a hit out on you.”

            Adam hadn’t thought about that.  He stiffened. “That’s why Blake told me not to visit him, not to try to help him!  But I can’t! I can’t just sit back and do nothing!” He looked at Levi, his eyes pleading. “Levi, you’re a lawyer.  Is there anything, anything at all, you can do?”

            Now all eyes had turned to Levi.  Levi leaned back in his chair, chewing his lip as he thought.  “You’re right,” he said at last.  “I’m not a defense lawyer, but I know the law.  And even if what Shelton says is true and he’s completely innocent?  Or even if the real culprit steps forward, confesses, and is immediately taken into custody?  Shelton won’t be immediately released.  He’s been convicted in a court of law, and only a court of law can free him.  He’ll need an order from a judge to be released. I can push the hell out of that, but it’s still going to be a delay while Shelton is still in jail.”

            “And we don’t know for certain if Shelton’s telling the truth,” Penny pointed out.  “I read up on him when I learned who it was that attacked you, Adam.  And the things he’s accused of?”  She shuddered.  “The sexual assault and murder of a child!”

            “It wasn’t Blake!” Adam insisted.  “Blake blames himself for Brandon, that he didn’t do enough to help him, but it was always Brandon’s mother.  She was after Blake, and when he turned her down, she waited for a way to hurt him.  When her son killed himself, she immediately turned it around, blamed Blake, when she was the one who had been hurting that poor little boy all along!”

            “Adam?”  It was Joy. “Are you sure he was telling you the truth?”

            “Yes,” Adam replied without hesitation.  “Blake’s innocent.  The man I met in that prison, he was like two different people.  The one was who he became to survive.  But the other one, the real Blake Shelton?  He’s kind, he’s caring, he loved being the leader of the band and teaching music to kids.  And he was ready to die to try to keep those gang bangers off of me for as long as he could. That’s not the type of man who could attack a little kid, alright?  It’s just not!”

            Levi considered this.  “Alright,” he said at last.  “I’ll open his case, and I’ll do it as secretly as I possibly can.”

            Adam went limp in his chair.  He breathed a sigh of relief.  “Thank you! There was another kid, a cousin of Brandon’s, that testified against Blake.  Dwayne.  Blake said he believed Dwayne knew something was wrong with Brandon, but he’d suspected Blake!  All the kids in Blake’s band called him ‘Daddy Shelton, which must have been damned creepy to someone thinking what Dwayne was thinking.  And he likely never suspected Brandon’s mom!  But it’s been some time now.  If I could get a detective or someone to find Dwayne, so I could talk to him?  There’s got to be evidence, something that could clear Blake’s name and point a finger at the real culprit!”

            “I can help with that,” Levi said.  “We’ll put out the word that Adam’s too traumatized to want to pursue charges, and then work behind the scenes.  My firm has several private detectives that we use.  I can assign one of them to Brandon’s case.”

            “And I can pay for it,” Benjamin added.  “That will confuse the paper trail.  If these Kings are really bad news like you say, and they might go back on Adam?  Then this might be better.  Levi, give me a detective you don’t usually use, maybe someone your regular people can recommend.  I’ll pay for it through a shell company, bury the paper trail in overseas money transfers.”

            “Good idea!”  Levi squeezed his brother’s arm.  “If we work together like this, then if there’s any evidence out there that Shelton’s innocent, we’ll find it.  But Adam?” Levi’s eyes were serious. “Chances are, there won’t be evidence to find.  Innocent or not, it’s been years.  He’s been convicted, and that makes people change their minds about a lot of things. And when you consider the nature of the crime he’s been accused of, well, I don’t imagine that many people are going to line up to try to help clear Shelton’s name.  But we’ll try, Adam.”

            “Thank you,” Adam breathed, smiling at his brothers. “Thank you so much!”


	15. Brandon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Adam investigates the crime Blake was convicted for

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warnings ahead, please mind the tags!

            The school where Blake Shelton had once led the high school band was in a rough district.  The neighborhood was a poor one, full of houses in disrepair on neglected streets. Adam drew suspicious stares as he walked.  Even though he wasn’t wearing high-end clothing or displaying any real signs of being in a higher income level, Adam simply didn’t look like he belonged in this neighborhood.

            Dwayne Thompson was a different story.  He did look like he belonged here.  Dwayne was hardened by the rough environment where he lived.  His face seemed etched in a permanent frown, his dark skin more likely to develop frown lines than laugh lines as he aged.  His eyes were narrow and constantly watching. He walked with his shoulders hunched in a posture that seemed defensive, his hands shoved deep into his pockets. He hadn’t trusted Adam from the start. And it was clear he didn’t trust Adam now.

            Adam actually considered it a minor miracle that Dwayne was willing to speak to him at all.  The first person he’d met after he knocked on Dwayne’s door was, unfortunately, Jennifer Gable.  That had been a case of instant dislike.  Adam immediately hated her because of what he knew about her from Blake.  And Jennifer had immediately assumed Adam was a cop. “You got a warrant?” was the first thing out of her mouth.

            Adam had seen pictures of Jennifer Gable and knew exactly who she was.  He’d never in his life wanted so badly to punch a woman.  But he kept himself firmly in check.  “I’m not a cop,” he said politely.  “I wanted to speak to Dwayne?”

            “You look like a cop,” Jennifer announced.  “And I’m telling you to get your ass off this property unless you have a warrant!”

            “I already told you, I’m not a cop!”  Adam strained for patience.  “I just need to speak to Dwayne.  It’s about Brandon.”

            “Brandon?”  Her frown deepened.  “What you wanna know about Brandon?”

            “What about Brandon?”

            Adam looked past her to find the source of the voice, and there was Dwayne. Adam brightened.  “Dwayne!  I needed to speak to you about your cousin.”

            “What for?  He dead and gone, thanks to that sick motherfucker music teacher!”

            “That’s actually what I wanted to talk to you about.  I...”

            Jennifer was in his face.  “I don’t think you are listening to me!  Turn around, and walk your ass right back to where you came from.  Before I throw you right down this sidewalk!”

            Her voice was loud and demanding.  Already, people were paying entirely too much attention.  Unfriendly faces regarded Adam from neighboring yards and stoops.

            Adam’s patience was rapidly reaching its end.  “Listen, lady,” he told her.  “I have reason to believe that there’s more to Brandon’s death than what came up in the trial.  I am trying to get to the truth, and to do that, I need to talk to Dwayne.  Five, ten minutes max is all I’m asking!  It’s not too much to ask to get to the bottom of what happened to an innocent boy, now is it?  Unless, of course, there’s some other reason you don’t want me to talk to him?” He looked her in the eye.  “It’s a bit strange for a mother to lose her child and not want to know what happened to him, isn’t it?”

            “It ain’t that,” Dwayne announced, pushing past Jennifer.  “Aunt Jen doesn’t trust white men.  Around here, we got plenty of reason not to.”

            “Look, I’m sorry about your racial issues, but I honestly do not give a shit,” Adam informed him.  “I don’t care what color Brandon is.  All I care about is that he’s a child who shouldn’t have died.”

            “Not like you can bring him back!”

            “No, but maybe if I find out what really happened to him, I can keep it from happening to anyone else.”

            “Won’t happen to anyone else.  Shelton’s rotting in jail.”

            “Then let’s make damned sure he stays there, alright?”  Adam’s heart was pounding.  He looked unflinchingly back at Dwayne as the other man stared him down. Dwayne was younger than Adam, but he was taller, bigger.  He was clearly trying to use his size to intimidate Adam.  But Adam was not about to be intimidated.  After what he’d gone through, it was going to take more than this kid to do that.

            Meanwhile, Jennifer was staring hard at Adam as well, her eyes narrowed in suspicion.  “You look familiar.  Where have I seen you before?”

            “I’m an underwear model for Calvin Kline.  Sorry, no autographs.  Dwayne? Please.  I just want to find out what happened.  Isn’t that worth a few minutes of your time?”

            Dwayne had stared Adam down a moment longer.  Then he’d nodded and gone back inside for his coat.  And a moment later, he was walking with Adam down the broken sidewalk, heading for the small playground in the middle of the square.

            Finally arriving, the two sat down on one of the park benches.  Dwayne looked sullen and suspicious as he looked at Adam.  “You got five minutes,” he announced.

            Adam nodded.  “What made you think something was wrong with Brandon?”

            Dwayne rubbed at the back of his neck.  “The way he acted.  He was having nightmares all the time, just all the sudden, you know?  And wetting the bed.  Never heard of a kid his age wetting the bed before.  Aunt Jen was going through a tough time.  She’s got some issues, always did.  And I’ll sit here and say she was a lousy mom.  Never knew what to do when Brandon had trouble. Half the time, her answer was to slap him.  I tried to run interference, but that...  That had its own problems.”

            “What do you mean?”

            “Nothing.  We ain’t here to talk about Aunt Jenny.”

            Adam eyed the other man.  Then he decided to take a leap.  “Blake Shelton made some accusations at his trial.  About your aunt.”

            “That son of a bitch would have blamed anyone!” Dwayne exclaimed.  “But you should have heard the way he had those kids calling him ‘Daddy Shelton.’  Sick, man!”

            “Why?”

            “Because of what he was doing to Brandon!”

            “So you think he was molesting more kids?”

            “Hell, I don’t know!”  Dwayne pounded a fist on his thigh.  “Those kids spent so much time with that sick freak, only God knows who else he was at.”

            “What about you?”

            “What about me?”

            “Was he after you?”

            “Fuck no!”

            “Then who was?”

            Paydirt.  It was subtle, no more than a widening of the young man’s eyes, a stiffening of his body. But then Dwayne’s mask was firmly back in place.  “Dude, you’re about five seconds from me either walking away from here, or kicking your scrawny ass!”

            “Alright.  You said you knew there was something wrong with Brandon,” Adam began, thinking fast. “Did he say anything to you?”

            “No. And I tried to get him to talk, alright? Hell, I tried like hell to get him to talk to me, to tell me what was wrong.  First he denied anything was wrong.  Then he just kept saying Shelton wasn’t hurting him.  I even got him one of those journals, you know, to write things in?”

            “A journal?”

            “Yeah.  It was something I read or heard about somewhere.  When someone can’t talk, can’t tell anyone what’s bothering them for any reason?  You give them a journal and you let them work it out on paper.  So I got him this journal, real nice one, leather bound and everything.”

            “Did he write in it?”

            “All the time!  That kid was constantly writing in that journal.  In fact, the suicide note he left?  The paper was a page from that journal.”  Dwayne’s face fell.  “I cannot tell you how much that hurt, that the journal I gave him to try to express his thoughts so maybe he could eventually say them out loud?  He’d used it for his suicide note!”

            “What about the rest of the journal?” Adam pressed.  “Where is it?”

            Dwayne shrugged.  “Beats the hell out of me.  I looked everywhere for the damned thing.  I thought it might help put Shelton away, you know?  But I never found it.”

            Adam felt frustrated.  A journal, where Brandon had been keeping his secret thoughts!  Something like that could save Blake!  He thought hard.  “Was there anywhere special that Brandon liked to go, somewhere he felt safe?”

            “That stupid fucking instrument room at the high school,” Dwayne growled. “The place he hung himself!  But don’t bother.  It was the first place I thought to look.  The cops already turned it upside down, didn’t find shit.  I looked myself, even got into every single instrument case, checked down the tuba, you name it.  That journal wasn’t there.”

            “Well it’s got to be somewhere!” Adam exclaimed.  “It couldn’t have just disappeared, unless...  Would his mother take it?”

            “Hell no!  That was one thing Brandon insisted on, that absolutely no one touched his journal. He hid it somewhere when he wasn’t writing in it.  And he obviously had it at the end.  He wrote his suicide note on it.”

            “Right.”  Adam winced. “Sorry.”

            Dwayne waved his apology aside.

            “Was there anyplace else, besides the instrument room, that Brandon liked to go?

            “Just here.”

            Adam straightened.  “Here? This park?”

            “Yeah, man.  That kid practically lived out here.”  Dwayne jerked a thumb towards the plastic playground climbing equipment.  “He used to sit in there for hours on end, writing in that journal.”

            “Really?”  Adam got up and moved to inspect the equipment.  It was old, with the cheerful colors faded from the sun and exposure to the weather.  There was a plastic sliding board with a ladder built into the side of a sort of shelter shaped like a two-story house.  Monkey bars stretched out from one side, a fireman’s pole from the other.  Adam peered under the shelter.  Nothing.  He checked the base of the sliding board but found nothing.  Adam sat down in the shelter, looking around.  _Alright, I’m a kid with a terrible secret I write about in my journal.  And I write here.  So when I’m finished writing, where do I put my journal?_

            Adam’s eyes fell on the ground.  Wood chips covered it.  Could Brandon have buried his journal?  No, that would have gotten it dirty, wet, and infested with bugs.  The journal was important to Brandon, so important he’d used a page from it to write his suicide note.  That, to Adam, was a message.  Find the rest of the book that supplied this, and you’ll find out what really happened to me. If that was the case, Brandon wanted his journal to be found.  He would have hidden it someplace where it would be safe from the elements.  But where would that be?

            Adam lay back in the plastic shelter, looking up at the bottom of the plastic roof. The roof met in a little peak, plastic shingles shedding rain off of the single, solid piece that made up the roof. Adam stared at it.  Then he got up and examined it.  He rapped on the bottom and his ears perked up at the hollow sound.

            “You find something?”  Dwayne had come over and was peering at the plastic roof.

            “Maybe.”  Adam ran his fingers over the base of the roof.  Solid.  He checked the sides, feeling around where the shape of a plastic window indicated an attic.  It, too was solid.

            “Hey, man, check this out!”

            Dwayne had pushed up under the eave of the roof, and the plastic shingles had moved.  They rose up about two inches, revealing a bit of ribbon neatly tied between the bolts that secured the roof to the support posts.  Adam carefully pulled on the ribbon, and brought up a leather-bound book.  The ribbon was between the pages like a bookmark, the spine facing the secret opening so that the ribbon could be used to draw the book up to the point it could be grabbed.

            “That’s it!” Dwayne exclaimed, excited.  “That’s his journal!”

            Adam pulled the precious journal free with trembling hands.  Then he hesitated, looking at Dwayne.  “Here,” he said, pushing it towards Dwayne.  “You’re his family.  You should be the one to read this.”

            “Who are you?” Dwayne asked suspiciously as he accepted the journal. “Aunt Jen’s right, you look familiar.” He stiffened.  “Holy shit!  You’re that guy from the riot.  You’re Levine, the warden’s kid that Shelton attacked!”

            “I’m Adam Levine, yes,” Adam said.  “But what you saw, it’s not how things really were, alright?  That’s how life is sometimes.  What you see, you believe you’re seeing something, but it’s not what you think it is.”  He clutched at Dwayne’s arm.  “Sometimes, awful things happen.  And when you’re in the middle of it, it’s easy to see something and make assumptions. But there are times when what you thought was suspicious while you were in the middle of it all is actually not what you thought it was, Dwayne.  Like ‘Daddy Shelton.’  If you’re in a bad, terrible place and someone is hurting you, and you see someone you love hurting, too?  It’s only human to look around and try to place the blame.  But sometimes, you look too far.”

            “Dude, you are making no sense!”

            “Read the journal,” Adam urged.  “Just read it, alright?”

            Adam stayed with Dwayne, waiting patiently while the young man read.  He knew it immediately when Dwayne finally saw the truth.  The young man looked like he’d just been punched.  He finished reading.  Then he doubled over, wrapping himself around the journal and moaned.  “No, no no!  No, that can’t be right.  Aunt Jen was slapping Brandon around, and I stopped her!  That’s why I was so pissed off when I figured out someone else was still hurting him, and when I heard those kids call him ‘Daddy Shelton,’ I thought...!”

            “It’s not your fault,” Adam soothed.  “You made a mistake.  And it was because you knew Blake was gay, wasn’t it?”

            Dwayne nodded, his eyes wild.  “I heard from this guy I knew who used to know Shelton from before he came to teach. He said Shelton had this boyfriend who always called him ‘Daddy Shelton.’  So when those kids were calling him that, I thought sure it was him that hurt Brandon!  How could it be Aunt Jenny?!  She promised me she wouldn’t hurt him anymore!”

            “So long as you cooperated with her?” Adam asked quietly.  “She was after you too, wasn’t she, Dwayne?  And did Brandon know?”

            Dwayne’s eyes squeezed tightly shut.

            “Is that why he killed himself?  That’s what he meant when he said he couldn’t take the pain anymore?”

            “I didn’t know he knew!  But it’s all right here.  He came home from school early because Shelton got sick and cancelled practice. And he saw us, saw what she was doing to me, what I let her do so she’d stop hitting Brandon.  And he _knew!_  He knew why I did it, that it was for him.  It’s all right there, Levine, and the very next page is torn out because he used it to... To...”  Dwayne burst into tears.

            Adam embraced the young man, let him sob into his shoulder.  But then Brandon abruptly pulled away and got up.  “You hold this,” he ordered, handing the journal to Adam.  “I got some business.”

            “Dwayne, no!”  Adam grabbed Dwayne’s arm, held on tight.  “I know you’re angry.  God knows you’ve got every right to be.  But this isn’t going to help, alright?  You go back there and attack her, and the only thing that will happen is that you go to jail.  You have a chance now to help Brandon!”

            “How?  He’s dead!”

            “But the two people he cared about most aren’t!” Adam insisted.  “You’re alive, and now you got a chance to help the other one he loved almost as much as he loved you!”

            Understanding dawned in Dwayne’s eyes.  “Shelton?  You want to help the guy who raped you?!”

            “He didn’t rape me, Dwayne.  Blake Shelton saved my life in that prison.  And it cost him to do it!  He’s already been beaten for it.  He’s in the infirmary right now, recovering from that.  But you can help get Blake out, and get the one who really hurt Brandon, who hurt the both of you?  Behind bars where she belongs!”

            Dwayne looked hard at Adam.  “Tell me Shelton’s a bad man?” he pleaded.  “Tell me he belonged in jail, that he deserved to be beaten!  He hurt you, right?”

            “What he did to me, he did to protect me.  And he got hurt far more for it than I did.”  Adam winced in sympathy, seeing the grimace of pain that twisted the young man’s features.  “Dwayne, you made a mistake.  It’s a natural, understandable mistake.  And I’m here to tell you that Blake never blamed you for it!”

            “I sent an innocent man to jail!”

            “You made a mistake!  And now you have a chance to correct it.”  Adam pressed the journal to Dwayne’s chest.  “Take this, and go to the police.  Tell them the truth, give that to them.  Have them arrest your aunt.  Then leave the rest to me, alright?”

            Dwayne swayed a bit on his feet.  “Brandon was the best of us all,” he whispered.  “He was smart, Levine.  He’s the one who was gonna go to college, get the hell out of this shithole, make something of himself!”

            Adam’s heart went out to Dwayne.  “Hey, listen.  Brandon’s gone, but you’re still here.  You have just as much of a chance as Brandon did, alright?  You want to honor his memory?  Then you do it by making something of yourself!  But first?  Save Blake, and get your cousin some justice!”

            Dwayne nodded.  Then he pulled out his phone and called the police.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Child abuse is all too real and more common than many know. If you know or suspect abuse, in the United States or Canada please contact the National Child abuse hotline. It's worth a little upset and inconvenience if you're wrong because you could literally save a life if you're right! Social workers, teachers, health care workers, child care providers, law enforcement, mental health professionals, other educators and medical professionals are all mandated reporters required to report suspected child abuse, but it's the responsibility of every human to look after vulnerable children!
> 
> https://www.childhelp.org/hotline
> 
> 1-800-4-A-Child or 1-800-422-4453


	16. Innocent Man

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Blake is finally exonerated, Adam is eager to reconnect.

            Blake’s new trial didn’t make any headlines.  It wasn’t in any paper.  It was private, just Blake, the judge, the prosecutor, and the independent lawyer Levi had arranged.  The trial consisted mostly of everyone falling over themselves to ensure that the entire thing was kept as quiet as possible.  Faced with the evidence of her son’s journal and Dwayne’s testimony to his own abuse, Jennifer Garner had confessed.  The state was forced to admit it had prosecuted, convicted, and imprisoned an innocent man.

            The only real fuss the state made was over the issue of Adam and the riot. Adam had agreed to drop charges in exchange for not being asked to provide testimony against Blake.  Then Blake’s lawyer had immediately wanted the evidence of the video tape thrown out.  “Listen to that crowd in the background,” he insisted.  “Those inmates were literally screaming for blood!  If my client hadn’t assaulted Mr. Levine, it’s highly possible that my client would have been assaulted himself!  And the same thing goes for the sexual assault.  You can clearly hear on the tape that the crowd was completely out of control, screaming for far worse than what actually happened.  Later, according to Mr. Levine’s written statement, Mr. Levine himself initiated sexual intercourse with my client.  While we all understand his motives now, understand that my client, at the time, was an innocent man in prison, had been violently physically and sexually assaulted himself there, and was in a very tenuous state of mind.  He believed that the contact the two of them had was consensual.”

            “Are you seriously going to sit there and try to claim that what we saw on that video, what Mr. Shelton did with Mr. Levine after Levine’s beating, was consensual?!”

            “My client isn’t on trial for sexual assault because no charges have been filed!” the lawyer shot back.  “And I deeply resent this attempt by the state to confuse the issue.  We are here today to discuss the fact that nothing that happened during that riot should have happened, because my client never should have been in that prison in the first place!  Everything he did while there was simply the attempt of a frightened, desperate man just trying to survive.  Now, since we’re all so eager to discuss sexual assault, let’s discuss what happened, repeatedly, since the first night my client was unjustly imprisoned!”

            Through it all, Blake hadn’t said a word.  Adam had been just as silent as he watched on closed-circuit television. He’d had to force himself to pay attention.  Even on the grainy screen, Adam could see the bruises, the marks on that dear face.  There were stitches in Blake’s lip.  Blake’s right wrist was in a splint.  He’d seen the way Blake had limped when he was brought in.  Blake’s face was covered with scruff again.  His hair looked unkempt.  Big Country was coming back, Blake’s attempt to protect himself from the hell of his surroundings.  Adam hardly recognized the gentle giant that had held him so close that last morning. The blue eyes on the television screen were hard, angry and set.  They were exactly what he might have expected the eyes of a man in Blake’s position to look like.  But they were so far from those kind sky-blue eyes he’d seen that morning that Adam’s stomach was twisting itself into knots.

            “He’s getting out, Adam,” Levi assured.  Adam’s brother reached over and squeezed his hand.  “I know this is hard, but honestly, they’re just trying to find a reason to pay him less in damages.  He was falsely accused, wrongfully convicted, and gave up years of his life because the state made a terrible mistake when it believed Jennifer Garner.  Now they’ve got to compensate Blake for that mistake.”

            “Mistake,” Adam said bitterly.  “That’s what you call it.  All that happened to Blake, it’s all categorized as ‘Mistake.’  He’ll never be able to go back to his old home or his old life, never be able to teach again...  What’s he going to do?”

            “Start again,” Levi advised, squeezing his hand again.  “He’s young, only a few years older than you.  He’s smart, and he’s tough.  He’ll make it.  And Adam, we are going to make sure Blake’s got a nice little nest egg to work from!”

            That much, at least, turned out to be correct.  Adam blinked at the size of the settlement Blake was eventually rewarded. But he gave little thought to the money. Blake was found not guilty.  All charges had been dropped.  And at long last, Blake was free.

            Adam couldn’t meet Blake outside of the prison.  He couldn’t do anything that might let the Kings know he’d had anything at all to do with Blake’s release.  Marlon Levine had leaned on some contacts, found out that the feds had been investigating the Kings for some time.  The gang had shown some interest in Blake’s new trial, but had largely ignored it.  Blake had been attacked in the cafeteria about two days after he’d arrived in the new prison, badly beaten, and spent the night in the infirmary with a concussion. Then there had been other issues, vague problems no one was willing to discuss.  It seemed clear that Blake had not had an easy time since the riot.  But Blake had still refused to pledge to the Kings, nor would he agree to testify against them.  Blake had never agreed to join the Kings.  He’d proven now that he was no threat to them.  There was no sign Blake had anything at all to do with them beyond his actions to end the riot.  And now Blake was out of prison.  Would the Kings leave him alone now, or would they go after him?

            The next two weeks were torture for Adam.  Fortunately, he was kept in the loop.  The feds were still watching Blake.  He’d gotten on a bus, headed down to Oklahoma where he was known to have family. He’d used some of his settlement money to fix up a small country cottage his family had owned.  Now he was working, doing odd jobs on the side while he tended bar.  The bar was called Ol’ Red’s, and it contained a stage where musical acts performed live.  Sometimes, the acts were more known talents, able to draw a crowd and a cover charge. Usually, the stage featured local talent.  Adam was happy to learn that Blake quickly became a popular act on that stage.  He’d even attracted the attention of a talent scout. Blake might end up as a professional singer after all!

            Adam got permission from the FBI to send Blake a letter.  He kept it largely neutral, his tone professional, saying he’d heard that Blake had been cleared of all charges.  Adam was happy to know justice had been served.  He harbored no hard feelings towards Blake.  He wished Blake well.  He included a coupon for a free shave and haircut at a nearby barber shop and a CD album that featured “Broken.”  Naturally, those two items were Adam’s real message.

            Once again, he waited.  And waited. He was sure Blake would have gotten his letter by now.  Adam had used an envelope pre-printed with his return address and had taken a marker to the address.  It “accidentally” left the address readable if held in the light.  Now Blake would have a way to contact Adam.  But it didn’t happen.  Blake went on with his life.  Adam got a job at a security desk for a company not associated with Ben’s corporation.  That was intentional.  Adam and his family had developed a new closeness, visiting often and finally coming to realize what it was to be a family.  But Adam was determined to succeed on his own.

            Adam sent Blake an anonymous package.  Inside the package was a pair of cowboy boots in Blake’s size, which Adam had gotten from his prison records through his father, a set of black bed linens, and the sheet music to “Don’t Be Afraid.”  He waited.  Nothing. Blake signed on with an agent, but so far hadn’t been signed to any recording deals yet.

            The FBI confirmed that there was no gang activity around Blake.  The Kings seemed to have let him go.  They’d succeeded in getting Blake out without letting them know Adam had been in any way involved.  Thrilled, Adam sent an open letter to Blake, with his full name, address, and multiple telephone numbers where he could be reached.  He told Blake how much he missed him.  He told him that he’d heard about the agent, and how proud he was of Blake’s success so far with his music.  Adam had known Blake could do it.  Adam couldn’t wait for Blake’s first record.  Was there anyone special in Blake’s life?  Adam couldn’t stop thinking about Blake.  Now the threat of the Kings was gone, and they could pursue what was between them.  When would be a good time for Adam to come and visit him?  Please call, or write?  Adam was anxious to pick up where they’d left off.

            Adam waited.  He made sure he constantly had his phone charged, nearby, and in service.  He watched his mail every day.  Five days after he’d sent his letter to Blake, Adam had a letter in his mailbox.  It was his letter to Blake.  It was unopened, and the words “Return to sender” had been written on the front.

            Adam spent some money he really couldn’t afford and hired a PI in Oklahoma to get him some information on Blake.  He met with the man and was handed an envelope.  “Pictures, maps, addresses, phone numbers, and names,” the PI announced. “Shelton’s kind of a loner, lives alone in his cottage and works on his music out on the back porch in the mornings. Only visitor he’s had was his mom, about three weeks ago.  He seems friendly, well-liked by his co-workers.  People in town think he’s a reclusive country singer, just about to make it big.  The bar’s packed when they know he’s singing.”

            Adam flipped through the pictures, frowning.  Then he stopped, staring, at one.  He held it up to the detective.  “When was this?”

            “That was two days ago, at his show,” the PI explained.  “Like I said, packed house.  I was able to get pretty close, get some good pictures, without seeming conspicuous.  Why?”

            Blake was beyond handsome in the picture.  He had his guitar in his hands, seated on a stool in front of a microphone, looking like he was born to be there.  The sheer joy in those blue eyes made Adam’s heart melt.  But all of it was eclipsed by what rested on the support bar of that stool.  “Those cowboy boots.”  Adam tapped the boots with a finger and smiled.  “He’s wearing the boots I gave him!”

            “Kid, I don’t know anything about that, alright?  You didn’t ask me to look at his boots.  You ok here, we done?”

            “Yeah, thanks!” Adam said warmly.  He pushed a check towards the man.  “You really gave me exactly what I needed to see.”  He paused.  “This bar Blake works at, Ol’ Red.  They have live entertainment every night?”

            “Sure do!”

            He nodded, his eyes on the picture.  Blake was clean-shaven again, his hair in a much neater and more professional version of the cut Adam had given him in the prison.  That settled it.  He had to see Blake again.  Alright. He looked at the detective.  “How, exactly, would someone go about getting up on that stage?”

****

            Blake had awakened in the infirmary after the attack in the cafeteria knowing he couldn’t last.  He’d held his own for about fifteen seconds before three guys were on him, holding his arms while Ortega worked him over.  The gang leader was using makeshift brass knuckles, cobbled together and crudely welded.  They looked silly, but they were very effective.  The last thing Blake remembered was the stars that exploded before his eyes when the makeshift weapon slammed into his head.  Then he’d awakened restrained to the bed in the infirmary with Ortega himself standing over him.

            “Wakey, wakey, Big Country!”

            “If you’re here for a date, I’m not interested,” Blake managed.  His jaw ached.  Stitches repaired his lip, making speaking clearly difficult.

            “Just officially extending the offer.  You sign up, pledge loyalty, we give you some ink...”

            “No thanks.  I already regret the ink I’ve already got.”

            Ortega cocked an eyebrow, looking at Blake’s arm.  “Lady bugs in barbed wire?”

            “It was supposed to be deer hoofprints.  Now you see why I’m not into tattoos.”

            “You seemed pretty into the ones on Levine.”

            “Did you happen to notice the body they were tattooed on?”  Blake squeezed his eyes shut.  He opened them again, peering up at Ortega.  The man was still ugly, but a bit less blurry.  “I’m not interested, alright?  I said no before when the gangs came talking.  I’m not gonna change my mind just because we’re in a new cage!”

            “Yeah you will.”  Ortega leaned down, his rancid breath blowing into Blake’s face.  “Because this time, we own the joint.  Thanks to you?  We’re in our own personal paradise!  Now, you got two choices, Shelton.  You can say no, and then I can put you right back in here over and over, make you my bitch, and you join anyway.  Or you can just save me the trouble and just join.  And our relationship stays the same, but you’ll enjoy it a hell of a lot more.” His fingers stroked a scarce bit of uninjured skin on Blake’s face.  “Hate to see that pretty face all messed up!”

            Blake couldn’t punch him while restrained.  He turned his face away instead.  “Keep your hands off me.  Told you, I’m not interested.”

            “Hey, your choice,” Ortega called, backing off.  “One way or another, you’ll come around.”

            Of course he would come around.  Ahead of him stretched nothing but long years behind bars.  Was it even worth holding out, holding on?  He didn’t miss the way Ortega leered at him when Blake recovered and was returned to his cell.

            Blake didn’t have his reputation in this place.  People didn’t know yet to leave him alone.  He had to start over again.  Twice inmates came after him, and he’d been forced to fight.  After that, things got a bit better.  All he wanted was to be left alone.  But Ortega wouldn’t leave him alone.  The Kings leader was everywhere, sliding in next to Blake at meals, mysteriously appearing in the shower every time Blake went, always lingering near Blake in the exercise yard.

            The last straw was when Blake was taken out of his cell, informed he was moving, and escorted to Ortega’s cell.  Ortega was standing at the bunks, leaning against them and grinning.  “Top or bottom?” he called.

            “No fucking way,” Blake announced.  “You touch me, and I don’t care what your gang does to me.  I will break you in half, Ortega!”

            Ortega raised his hands, still smiling.  “Unlike you, I don’t have to tie my bitches up or beat them down to force them.  And I don’t give a shit that you’re bigger than I am.  In here, it’s more about connections than how well you can fight.  I have ‘em.  You don’t. But you can have me.”

            “I’ll pass.

            “Things are about to start getting real bad for you, Big Country.  I can make ‘em a whole hell of a lot better! And if you’re under my protection, well...”  His eyes roved suggestively over Blake.  “You’ll find I can take either bunk.”

            “I’d rather die.”  Blake stormed in, slammed his belongings forcefully on the top bunk, and climbed up. He lay on the bunk scowling, ignoring the laughter from Ortega, and tried to calm his pounding heart.

            He’d never survive this.

            Then a lawyer he’d never heard of showed up, explaining to Blake that he was being transferred, that Jennifer Garner had confessed, and that Blake was getting a new trial.

            Adam.  It had to be Adam.

            Ortega sent a message to Blake through a guard, warning Blake to keep his mouth shut.  Blake did exactly that.  Through it all, he waited for Adam to show up, incriminate himself in some way, and become a target for the Kings.  But Adam never showed.  Good. Blake had been terrified the little shit wouldn’t listen, but Adam, it seemed, had kept his word.  Blake got his conviction overturned and his name cleared. Halleluiah.  He was awarded a decent settlement and headed back to Tishomingo.  There, he fixed up his grandfather’s old summer cottage and moved in, got a job. He dipped into his settlement to fix up the cottage, get a new truck, and settle in.  The rest he shunted into Brandon’s Melody.  His charity had finally taken form.  Already, the administrators he’d hired to manage the charity for him had trained counselors who were doing education for free in local schools and churches.  People were learning how to recognize and help children in need.  Brandon wouldn’t die in vain.  Blake told himself he was content.

            Then came a letter from Adam.

            Blake used the barber coupons, got himself cleaned up.  He listened to “Broken” on repeat, read the words of Adam’s letter over and over.  Adam filled his thoughts, occupied his dreams.  He could close his eyes and remember how Adam looked, how he smelled. He could hear the sounds he made. Blake vividly remembered the way Adam tasted when they’d kiss.

            He could see the return address on the envelope.  Adam was clever, letting Blake know where he was while giving the appearance of hiding.  It could only mean one thing - the feds were watching.

            Blake would make damned sure there was nothing for them to see.  Nothing could happen to Adam.  Adam needed to move on with his life.

            Adam, apparently, wasn’t yet ready to move on.  Blake got a package that had to have come from Adam, used the linens, wore the boots.  But the next letter openly had Adam’s name and return address.  No, Adam.  You needed to move on, forget what happened, and stay far far away.  Blake returned the letter unopened, hoping Adam would get the message.  Apparently, Adam thought the danger was over, that there was no longer any reason to hide. But there was.  The gangs might not be around, but Big Country, the monster he’d become in the prison, was always around.  Adam had no future with Big Country.  He had no future with Blake Shelton.  He needed to move on.

            Blake had been trying hard to take his own advice.  He worked at Ol’ Red, where he’d worked summers during college, and picked up his old guitar again.  Interesting.  Suffering through being in prison unjustly seemed to naturally lend itself to writing country music songs.  Go figure. He started performing on stage, and before long, the owner was talking seriously about a cover charge.  Then suddenly Blake had an agent, started booking shows in other venues.  Brandon’s Melody got a large percentage of Blake’s income from every show.  Things were going well.  He’d moved on from his ordeal, his record had been expunged. His life was good now.  What did it matter that his bed felt cold and empty, or that he still woke up reaching for a warm, tightly-muscled, heavily tattooed body that wasn’t there?

            Adam was better off without him.

            Blake was tending bar in Ol’ Red when he heard it.  The singer tonight wasn’t local, or country.  Ol’ Red hosted a variety of musical types so it didn’t matter much, but Blake preferred country.  He’d never heard of this singer, some out-of-towner from Los Angeles called Adam Smith.  Blake had been pouring drinks as usual, paying no attention.

            And then, up on the stage, the singer picked up a guitar and began to sing.  _“I asked you to stay, but you wouldn't listen. And you left before I had the chance to say the words that would mend the things that were broken. But now it's far too late.  You’ve gone away!  Every night you cry yourself to sleep.  Thinking ‘why does this happen to me?  Why does every moment have to be so hard?’  Hard to believe that it's not over tonight!  Just give me one more chance to make it right!  I may not make it through the night.  I won't go home without you!”_

            Blake froze.  He handed the drink he’d just finished to the customer at the bar, oblivious to the concerned man’s questions.  Slowly, Blake turned towards the stage and raised his eyes.  He saw a pair of motorcycle boots below skinny jeans so tight they could have been painted on.  A silver chain hung from a pocket, attaching a wallet to the singer’s belt. He had a guitar in his hands. Above the guitar was a t-shirt with “LA” printed on it beneath a black leather motorcycle jacket.  And there, right there, looking directly at Blake as he sang, was a face Blake told himself he’d never see again.

            _“The taste of your breath, I'll never get over,”_ Adam was singing.  _“The noises that you made kept me awake.  Oh, the weight of the things that remained unspoken built up so much it crushed us every day!”_

            Blake leaned on the bar.  He couldn’t tear his eyes away, not even when his boss took his shoulder and asked what was wrong.

            _“Every night you cry yourself to sleep. Thinking ‘why does this happen to me? Why does every moment have to be so hard?’  Hard to believe that it's not over tonight!  Just give me one more chance to make it right!  I may not make it through the night.  I won't go home without you!”_

            “Blake!  Talk to me, big guy, before I call an ambulance!”

            “I’m alright,” he managed.  And he was. The crowd burst into appreciative applause as Adam finished his song.  Of course they would.  Adam was good.  He’d already known Adam was good.  He was wasted as a corrections officer.  Adam belonged on a stage with a microphone, with or without a guitar in his hands. Blake managed to make it through Adam’s show, catching the smaller man’s eye after the last song and jerking his head towards the back.  He saw Adam give him a small nod in return.  He asked his boss if he could head out early, making up an excuse about an upset stomach.  And then he went outside to wait.

            He didn’t wait long.  Adam came strolling around the corner of the bar to the employee parking lot like he had every right to be there.  Blake looked around.  “Which car’s yours?”

            “None of ‘em,” Adam informed him.  “I flew out, stayed last night in a hotel room, and took a cab here.”

            “So you’re in a hotel?”

            “No. I only had it last night.”  He indicated a backpack over one shoulder. “This is my stuff.”

            “Adam, if you don’t have a hotel room, then where the hell were you planning to stay?”

            The hazel eyes looked hard at him.

            “Shit,” Blake groaned.  “Alright, get in the truck.”

            Adam’s presence in Blake’s truck had a disturbing sense of unreality.  Blake’s emotions were having a battle royal, waging war against each other in a fight for dominance.  He was so glad to see Adam.  He was furious to see Adam.  He was longing for company.  He desperately wanted to be alone to process this.  Round and round and round.  Adam didn’t say a word.  He sat in Blake’s truck with his backpack on the seat between them, silently watching as the road continue to roll under the wheels of the truck.  When Blake finally came to a decision and pulled off into a dark, empty field, he simply looked over at him, looking confused.

            “Get out!”  Blake got out himself, stomped around the front of the truck to drag Adam out when the smaller man didn’t obey fast enough.  He heard Adam yelp when he grabbed him in a tight grip, dragging him, stumbling, to the back of the truck to shove him roughly down on the ground.

            Adam looked up, frowning.  “Blake, what the hell?!”

            Blake ignored him in favor of dropping the tailgate on the truck.  Then he had Adam again, grabbing him by the lapels of his jacket to jerk him up and throw him forward over the back of the tailgate.  “What the hell are you doing out here, Levine?!”

            “What the hell do you think?!  I came out here for you, because you wouldn’t fucking talk to me!”

            Adam was trying to get up, to push himself off of the tailgate.  Blake wouldn’t let him.  He stood directly behind the smaller man, his hand between Adam’s shoulder blades, pushing him down on the tailgate.  “You should have stayed away!”

            “No! Dammit, Blake, what are you doing? Hey!  Stop!”

            Blake’s other hand had reached around Adam’s waist and was busy unhooking Adam’s belt.  “You just had to come out here, huh?” Blake snarled, quickly slapping Adam’s hands away and undoing the front of his jeans.  “You couldn’t stay away!”

            “No, I couldn’t!  Because I love you, Blake!  And it’s just like I told you in my first song.  I won’t go home without you!”

            “Son of a bitch!”  Adam wouldn’t stop struggling.  He was trying to push himself sideways now, trying to slide off of the tailgate.  Blake grabbed his hips and roughly dragged him back. “Don’t you remember how it was in that prison, Levine?  The shit I did to you?  Or what I pretended to do to you?!  How about I make it real, huh?”

            “Get off of me!  Blake, what the hell are you trying to prove, huh?!”

            “Just triggering some memories!”  Blake pulled Adam’s belt free and quickly looped it around Adam’s wrists, cinching it tight and holding it to trap his hands.  That did it.  He paused, seeing Adam cry out and struggle wildly.  “Yeah, there we go.  You remember now, don’t you?  How helpless I made you?  How I hurt you, trapped you, humiliated you?!”

            “Get off me!  Let me up!” Adam was thrashing wildly.  His breathing was in panicked gasps as he tried desperately to get up.

            Blake leaned down hard on Adam, feeling Adam’s struggles increase as he was pressed down by Blake’s weight.  “All I gotta do is push these down,” he whispered, hooking his fingers into Adam’s waistband.  “I could take you right here and now, the way I should have done in that prison.  No one would hear you scream.  No one could stop me.  You never should have come out here, Levine, never!”  Now Adam would see.  He’d understand what Blake really was.  Blake would hold him here a bit longer, let Adam really go into a panic attack. Then when he let him go, Adam would race back home and never look back.

            Adam froze at Blake’s words.  Then, to Blake’s shock, he went limp.  “Is that what you need?” he asked quietly.  “You need to prove to yourself that you’re a monster, something you’re not? Is this what it’s going to take for you to finally say goodbye forever to Big Country?  Then go ahead, Blake.  Hold me down, tie me up, threaten me, whatever you want to do.  I won’t fight you.  Because I love you, Blake.  And I know, I know that you won’t really hurt me.  That’s not who you are.  I believe in you, and I’m not leaving, alright?  I’m not!”

            Blake’s resolve broke.  He swore and let go of Adam, stomping off into the field.  Both hands clutched at his hair.

            Behind him, he heard the tailgate creak a little as Adam got off of it, followed by footsteps as he shook his hands free of the belt and came closer. “What are you afraid of, Blake?”

            Blake squeezed his eyes shut.  “I’m afraid that what you felt in that prison, what you believed you felt for me? You’re gonna figure out it’s not real! You’re going to wake up one day and realize that it was the stress, the craziness of those days in that riot that brought us together.  There’s no real substance between us, Adam!  We have nothing in common, no shared history...”

            “So we’ll make some!”

            “Dammit, Levine!”  Blake turned, took Adam’s arms, and shook him.  “I am not what you need in your life!  Look at me!  Hell, look at what I just did to you, the way I just manhandled you!  What kind of sick son of a bitch am I?!  I’m a damaged, broken wreck of a man who’s just now finally starting to get his life back together.  I have nothing to offer you!”

            “You have this.”  Adam’s hand reached up, cupped over Blake’s heart.  “Give me this.  And just let the rest take care of itself.”

            Blake went silent.

            Adam moved closer, reaching his other hand up to touch Blake’s cheek.  “I love you,” he whispered.  “And maybe this is a mistake.  Maybe you’re right, and one day I’ll wake up and wonder what the hell I’m doing and regret it.  But maybe I won’t?  Maybe it will work out, and we can be happy!  All I know right now is that I will absolutely regret it if I don’t at least try to take that chance!”  He reached up, slipping his arms around Blake’s neck.  “Come on,” he urged.  “Don’t we deserve the chance to be happy?”

            Blake’s arms went around the slender waist of their own volition.  He drew Adam tightly against him, his lips seeking Adam’s unerringly in the darkness.  “I love you, Rockstar.  And you know, you really could have something!  What I saw and heard tonight?  I’d like to get my agent to take a look at you.”

            “I’d like that.  But it’s not your agent I want to look at me right now.”  Adam paused.  “I don’t want you to push me down over the back of your truck, Blake.  But that part of you that’s Big Country, the strength that got us both through that riot?  I gotta tell you, it’s sexy as hell!”  He kissed Blake again.  “What do you say you take me home, and we try that again from the start?”

            “Why don’t we try this whole damned thing again from the start?”

            “Sounds good to me!  I... Hey!  Put me down, asshole!  What are you doing?”

            Blake had dumped a protesting Adam playfully over his shoulder and was carrying him towards the truck.  “You wanted Big Country?  You got him!” He dumped Adam into his seat. Then he gave a Tarzan yell and pounded on his chest.

            Adam facepalmed.  “You’re an idiot.”

            “Noted!”  Blake jogged around to the driver’s side and quickly climbed into his truck.  For the first time in a long time, he looked forward to spending a night in his cottage.

THE END

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song is "Won't Go Home Without You" by Maroon 5


End file.
